Broken
by Em.Celle
Summary: Her words floor Lauren for a moment because she doesn't know where to place them. Bo has always been sweet to her. Even when she wasn't to other people, she always made exceptions for Lauren. But this sounds more than just someone being sweet to her best friend, but she doesn't know what they are, if not best friends. She's confused.
1. Part 1 Youth

_**Hello...it's me...LOL sorry. Seriously though. I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated anything but I'm back now. And with something depressing no less. :). It literally took an entire village to get this fic out and I have so many people to thank. I feel like trigger warnings are in order 'cause like I said, this is depressing. Don't even know if any of ya'll will read it. Oh well, here goes.**_

 _ **Trigger warnings for;**_

 _Depression, Internalized homophobia,Homophobia, Physical abuse. E.D, S.I., Alcoholism, Really bad coping mechanisms, Internalized self hate, Dubious consent._

* * *

 _ **Part One: Youth.**_

 _My youth is yours, tripping on skies sipping waterfalls._

* * *

The best thing to ever happen to Lauren Lewis happens because Mrs. Hendrix from next door dies.

Which sounds morbid and a little bit mean if you think about it, but it's honestly not. Lauren actually _liked_ Mrs. Hendrix a whole lot. She used to babysit Lauren and her sister Lucy when they were younger. And she'd bake them cookies that tasted like _both_ vanilla and strawberry and tell them the best kind of stories and let them stay up so late that Lauren's eyes couldn't stay open no matter how much she wanted them to. Lauren was _very_ sad when her mom told her that Mrs. Hendrix had suffered a heart attack and died. She wasn't allowed to go to the funeral but she was allowed to take Mrs. Hendrix's favourite flowers to her house the next day and even helped Charlie -Mrs. Hendrix's daughter- pack some of Mrs. Hendrix's stuff.

The Hendrix house doesn't get new owners for almost a whole year. Tamsin says it's because it's haunted, but Tamsin also says that batman is better than superman so Lauren doesn't really believe much of what comes out of Tamsin's mouth. She asks her mother often if she thinks the house will get new owners soon. It would be nice to have new people around. Lauren likes new people. They're like new books, strange and exciting and endlessly mysterious. It would be cool if the new owners had children. Lauren's in desperate need of someone to play with since Lucy's thirteen now and she won't play with Lauren because she says Lauren's a _baby_ and Tamsin's always with her mother, practicing pageant stuff.

Mrs. Lewis always tells Lauren that she doesn't know but if she hears anything, Lauren will be the first person she tells. Lauren knows she's lying. Grandpa's sick and daddy's depressed so her mom's too worried to think of anything other than taking care of him. Lauren doesn't know what depressed means, but Lucy says it's _not_ good. And Lucy's thirteen and thirteen year olds know a lot more than seven year olds so she must be right. Still, Lauren appreciates the effort her mom makes, even if it's to just tell her a little white lie.

Months pass and Lauren finally gets tired of asking. She forgets what it ever felt like to live next to Mrs. Hendrix. Her mom buys her a puppy and she names him Salmon. Tamsin becomes _Little Miss_ _Edwardsville_ and she suddenly stops picking Lauren's calls and she stops talking to her which is alright, or whatever. Lauren didn't like how snotty she was becoming anyway. She spends most of her days with Salmon, teaching him awesome tricks and trying to teach him how to count (she mildly excels at the former and tragically fails at the latter).

A year passes. She turns eight and her mom takes her to the new aquarium that opened in Chester. She's told to invite as many friends as she wants and it feels like her mom is somehow overcompensating. Things have turned rather weird at home ever since Grandpa's health took a turn for the worse and Lauren's father had to move in with him to help him cope. But Lauren doesn't have any friends anymore since she stopped talking to Tamsin so she ends up going to the aquarium with just her mom and Lucy who's literally useless since she's always on her phone.

In all her eight years of life, Lauren has never seen a sadder birthday, not even Kyle Jones's and all people do at his birthday is watch those black and white silent movies that he's obsessed with and eat sugarless candy. When she blows out the candles on her cake, Lauren wishes that someone would move to Mrs. Hendrix's house. Someone with a child her age. She could really, _really_ use a friend.

* * *

Lauren's grandfather dies three days before school's due to break for summer and her mom says they all have to go to the funeral to show their love and support for Lauren's father. Lauren didn't know her grandfather much. He kept to himself a lot and didn't like children very much. But with the exception of her eighth birthday, he'd always sent her birthday and Christmas presents and every time Lauren's father visited him, he sent him back with a book for both Lauren and Lucy. So Lauren feels like she owes it to him to dress nicely to his funeral.

Funerals are odd things. Lauren wears her pretty black dress that her mom bought for her when she was seven. She sits next to her mom who sits next to her dad who sits next to Lucy whose wearing sunglasses that make her look disrespectful in Lauren's opinion. Everybody looks sad as they lower her grandfather into the ground but when they get back to the house they eat and smile and tell each other funny things that Lauren's grandfather once did. It's all very strange and Lauren's relieved when her mom says that they'll all be going home the next day, except her dad who has to stay back and sort some things out.

Lauren's glad to get back home to Salmon and her room and her toys but she's especially glad when she gets home to find a removal lorry in front of Mrs. Hendrix's old house.

"Neighbours!" She yells even before her mom has parked the car. She's kneeling on the car seat although she knows she's not supposed to. She's just so excited. "Oh my god, do you think they have a child? Do you think she's a girl? Not that I care, a friend's a friend."

Her mom lets out a chuckle and parks the car, chastising Lauren when she hurriedly climbs out, ready to go meet her neighbours, "you can't go there _now._ They just arrived, let them settle in first."

Lauren deflates and pouts. "But when will that _be?_ "

"Tomorrow maybe. Now come on, go change and then go to the Jones's and get Salmon. And don't forget to thank them."

Lauren sighs. "Kay." She looks longingly at the lorry before heaving out another sigh and trudging towards the rock where they hide the key.

Tomorrow seems like such a long time away.

* * *

The next day, Lauren wakes up earlier than she ever has in all her life. She takes a bath all by herself and puts on her green dress with a pink ribbon that makes her look especially friendly. She even sprays Salmon with Lucy's hairspray so that he smells like cherries and freshness; she wants to make the very best first impression she possibly can on her new neighbours.

"Where do you think you're going, young lady?" Her mom asks just as Lauren reaches for the door. Lauren turns around with a guilty look on her face. She knows its super early, but she's just too excited to meet her new neighbours to care.

"I'm taking Sally for a walk." Her mom frowns the way she always does when she unimpressed. Lauren sighs and slumps her little shoulders, "I just really want to see if they have a child my age.

"And you will," her mom says, her face softening a little, "after you've had your breakfast and done your chores. You know you have to help around the house now that daddy's not around."

"Yes ma'am."

Her mom smiles. She can never be mad at Lauren for too long, especially not when she's being so adorable. "Go wake your sister up. Tell her I need her to help me get breakfast ready."

"Kay." She whispers, making her way towards the stairs. She feels a little sad and a lot disappointed. She had been looking forward to meeting her new neighbours. But then Salmon rubs his head on her leg and looks up at her with his shiny puppy eyes and everything doesn't seem so bad anymore. She just has to have breakfast and do her chores then she can go meet her new neighbours. She rubs behind Salmon's ears just like he likes it and laughs when he wags his tail happily. "You're the best, Sally." She tells him as she leads them to Lucy's room.

Lucy doesn't like Lauren going into her room. Not since she turned twelve and she and Lauren's mom went out and got her bras and makeup and she started talking to Lenny Rodgers all the time on the phone. So Lauren knocks on Lucy's door and knocks and knocks and Salmon barks insistently until Lucy finally yanks the door open and looks at the both of them with glaring eyes.

"What!" She barks out.

Lauren frowns. She doesn't very much appreciate being shouted at. "Mom said to come get you. Said she needs you to help her with breakfast."

Lucy grumbles. She does that a lot nowadays. Lauren's mom says its teenage hood taking its toll on her and that Lauren will be just like that someday. Lauren hopes she's wrong. She doesn't think she'll like being miserable all the time.

"Fine." Lucy finally says and bangs the door closed.

Lauren frowns at the closed door before picking Salmon up. "Teenage hood sure does make people rude, doesn't it, Sally?" Salmon barks happily and licks her face. Lauren laughs.

.

.

Lauren eats her breakfast slowly so she doesn't spill on her dress, then later she stands on her stool and helps her mother do the dishes. She waits patiently while her mother nicely packs some cookies and freshly baked bread in a picnic basket for her new neighbours and nods solemnly when her mother tells her to carry the basket carefully all the way to their new neighbours's house.

She makes sure not to skip on the way although she really wants to and she asks Salmon about ten times if he thinks she looks nice. Salmon wags his tail and Lauren decides that means yes.

She rings the bell and waits patiently and mentally prepares her politest smile for when someone opens the door.

"Hello." A tall man with dark hair and a grey shirt like the one Lauren's father paints in.

She smiles so wide at him her cheeks hurt a little. "Hello. I'm Lauren. I brought you bread."

She stretches the picnic basket out to him and he laughs in amusement as he takes it from her. She puts her hands behind her back and waits for him to invite her and Salmon inside. It'll be very rude of him if he doesn't considering she just brought him a basketful of treats.

"Thank you." He says in a deep voice, then smiles kindly at her. "Would you like a glass of warm milk?"

Lauren beams. "Yes please." Then she walks inside, Salmon right on her heels. She looks around the house as she waits for the nice man to close the door. It looks exactly like hers, except for the fact that there are boxes everywhere. Some of them half unpacked, others not even opened yet. Salmon tries jumping into one of the half unpacked boxes but Lauren scoops him up before he can get to it. "Behave." She whispers into his ear before giving her new neighbour an apologetic smile.

He just pats Salmon's head and tells Lauren to follow him into the kitchen. The kitchen looks almost identical to the Lewis's, except it's less clean and it smells a lot less like bleach and a lot more like fried bacon and nicely cooked eggs. Lauren decides that she likes it. There's a woman seated on one of the high stools. Her hair's in an extremely neat bun and she's dressed impeccably. Lauren thinks maybe she's going to work or something. Lauren's mother doesn't work. And she says women who work are unfair to their children. Lauren frowns slightly at the woman; she doesn't like unfair people very much.

Beside the woman, there's a little girl in blue overalls and a white tee shirt. Her dark hair is in French braids and she's looking at Lauren like she can't quite decide whether or not she likes her. Lauren's frown turns into a wide smile.

The girl scowls. "This is Lauren." The kind man says, placing a hand on Lauren's shoulder. "Lauren, this is my wife Aife and my daughter Bo. Lauren here is our very first guest, and she brought fresh bread." He beams at his family and pats Lauren's shoulder once before moving away.

Aife and Bo are just looking at Lauren and it makes her feel uncomfortable. She rubs behind Salmon's ear and searches her mind for something to say. "This is Salmon." She says finally. Everyone loves Salmon. He's tiny and cute and playful and it's impossible not to like him. "He's my best friend. I named him after my favourite fish. Everyone calls him Sally though. Wanna pet him?"

Bo is quiet for a moment then her lips stretch into a small grin and Lauren wonders if anyone has ever told her how pretty she is. She could probably rival Tamsin for the Little Miss Edwardsville crown and win. "You named your dog after a _fish_?"

Lauren nods, "my _favourite_ fish. D'you want to pet him? He's super friendly."

Bo looks at her dad, then her mom, then she shakes her head, "maybe later." She says quietly, "would you like some milk?"

Lauren nods and sets Salmon down with a stern warning not to move. Salmon sits and looks at her with his big puppy eyes, waiting for her approval. She chuckles and starches his ear. He wags his tail. Bo laughs. Lauren smiles at her. She and Bo are going to be great friends, she can tell.

.

.

Lauren takes great pride in showing Bo all around Edwardsville. They take their bikes and Bo's is great because it has a little basket at the front where Salmon can sit and bark as much as he wants. Lauren takes Bo to all her favourite places. She takes her to _Candy Castle_ and introduces her to Miss. Flynn who always has a smile on her face and pigtails in her hair. Miss. Flynn gives the free candy on the grounds of Bo being new and they sit on the pavement right in front of _Candy Castle_ and eat candy until they can't anymore.

She also takes Bo to Mrs. Violet's ice cream shop and they meet Tamsin there who's having ice cream with some of her friends from her snotty pageants. Lauren puffs her chest out as she introduces Bo as her new best friend and she feels an inexplicable amount of glee when Tamsin's eyes widen in what can only be jealousy. That'll teach her not to be snooty with Lauren.

Everyday there's something new to show Bo and when there isn't , they hang out in Lauren's backyard and play with Salmon or just lie on the grass and stare at the sky. They never go to Bo's. Bo says her father is starting up a new company and he needs his peace and quiet, and that her mother doesn't like children. Lauren finds it strange, that Bo's mother doesn't like children seeing as she's _Bo's mother._ But she doesn't mind Bo spending so much time at her place. Bo is funny and loud and surprisingly good at playing pranks on Lucy. She's exactly the kind of friend Lauren wished for when she blew her birthday candles.

The whole summer is a blur of bicycle rides and candy and ice cream and before Lauren knows it, summer break is over and she's in third grade. Her father comes back a week after schools open and he's so different that Lauren doesn't know how to act around him anymore. She wants to tell him that she has a new best friend and that she finally managed to teach Salmon how to walk on two legs. But he's always so quiet these days. The only time he ever talks is after he's gone out with Kyle's father and he comes back home late and unable to walk straight. Lauren's mother says not to talk to him when he's 'in that state'. So Lauren keeps as far away from him as she can.

* * *

Bo's ninth birthday comes a week after Halloween and she decides to have a costume party and invites everyone in their class. Lauren's mother helps Lauren with her blue fairy costume and even does her hair in a pretty bun. She's the only blue fairy at the party, three other girls came as pink fairies and Bo decided to be superwoman. Lauren thinks Bo's costume is the coolest of them all and she tells her as much.

They have juice and crisps and a really nice strawberry cake then everyone gives Bo a present then they watch _The Lion King_ as they wait for their parents to come pick them up. Lauren gets to spend the night and she even helps Bo unwrap some of her presents. Bo's father makes them hot chocolate before they sleep and even allows them to eat a slice of the leftover cake. It's the best birthday Lauren's ever been to.

Lauren's own ninth birthday passes without much fanfare. Things at her place have become rather tense recently. Her mother looks almost constantly tired and her father spends more time out of the house than he does in it. The only people who even remember Lauren's birthday are Lucy and Bo. Lucy takes the two of them out for ice cream and then to the mall. She buys Lauren a nice scarf and a coloring book she's been wanting since forever. Lauren hugs her as tight as she can. "Maybe you're not so bad." She whispers. Lucy snorts.

Bo gives Lauren her whole collection of power rangers and she won't take it back no matter how much Lauren tries to return it. So in the end, Lauren accepts it and hugs her and tells her she's the _best_ best friend in the world.

.

.

Bo's father's company finally starts paying off in the middle of fourth grade and Bo starts spending more time at Lauren's place than her own. Bo's mother doesn't seem to care where Bo is as long as she's safe. They stay up late under the covers and whisper secrets to each other and shut their eyes tight when Lauren's mother comes to check on them. Sometimes they sneak back down when everyone's asleep and cuddle up on the couch with Lauren's yellow blanket and watch SpongeBob and try to muffle their laughs. They usually find it hard to keep their eyes open the next day and they promise each other that they'll never sneak down again. But they break those promises more often than not.

The Halloween after Bo's tenth birthday is the best one Lauren's ever had in her life. They still have so much candy left over from Bo's birthday so this Halloween will be more about having fun than getting candy, but Lauren figures getting some candy couldn't hurt. They agree to dress as zombies and it takes them a whole week to get their costumes ready. Bo's dad gives them money to go to a professional designer in Chester. Lauren would have asked her mom to help since she's good at costumes and she's always helped Lauren with hers before, but her mother's been acting weird lately and Lucy says they should let her be. Lucy's almost sixteen now, practically an adult. She's less angry and more rational, she speaks with an air of authority and Lauren finds it easy to respect her. She and Bo take a bus to Chester all by themselves and are back before nightfall with their costumes. Lucy agrees to take them trick or treating without much of a fuss. She rolls her eyes as they put on their zombie make up and puts on a hoodie and headphones all the while while they're trick or treating so she's not much fun. They get much more candy than Lauren thought they would, it seems like people really like the zombie duo. Lauren and Bo agree to dress the exact same way next Halloween.

They pour all their candy on the floor of Lauren' bedroom when they get back home. They then divide their pile into three different piles. One pile they'll devour as soon as possible. Another they'll eat tomorrow, and the last one they'll hide in different places so they can find candy at the most random times and be surprised in the best way.

They eat so much candy that Lauren fears they'll get a stomach ache. And since Lucy is in a good mood and Lauren and Bo are ten now, practically adults, she allows them to watch a mildly scary horror movie. Lauren spends most of the movie with her face hidden in Bo's shoulder and Bo spends most of it with a pillow on her face. Still, it's the best movie Lauren has ever watched. They fall asleep on Lucy's bed, with Salmon somewhere near their feet and their fingers entwined. Before she fully falls asleep, Lauren silently wishes next Halloween will be exactly like this one.

.

.

Three days before Lauren turns eleven, Mr. and Mrs. Valentina from down the street move. Lauren's the first to see the moving truck and she runs all the way to Bo's and runs all the way to Bo's room (she doesn't ever knock nowadays) and wakes her up.

"Where do you think they're moving to?" Bo asks. They're outside now, Bo's still in her pajamas with Salmon -who's getting a little too big to be carried now- in her arms.

Lauren shrugs and shoves more cereal in her mouth. The Dennises always have the best cereal to be honest. "Florida maybe. They look like a Florida kind of couple."

"What does that even _mean?"_

Lauren shrugs again, "d'you want to go peek inside their truck?"

"Sure." Bo agrees easily. She always agreeable in the morning. It's the best time to ask her to do stuff. There's nothing cool to see in the truck and when Salmon barks so loud at a picture of two cats that Mrs. Valentina comes to check what the ruckus is all about, Lauren almost regrets suggesting they come snooping in the first place. But then Mrs. Valentina smiles at them and pets Salmon and helps them out of the truck and even gives them a couple of ugly dolls.

Suddenly, Lauren feels bad that the Valentinas are moving. She has never been close to them or anything. But she's lived close to them all her life. She always knows that she's guaranteed English candy when she goes trick or treating on their door and once she and Lucy and a bunch of other kids caroled for them and they gave them a box of expensive looking white chocolate. She impulsively hugs Mrs. Valentina's legs. She hates how everything is suddenly changing. Her father is now either quiet and withdrawn or loud and a little scary. Her mom is almost never home and even Lucy seems to be in her own world. Everything is changing so fast and Lauren doesn't know how to stop it.

Mrs. Valentina pats her head and smiles at her as she says goodbye. Bo holds her hand as they watch the truck leave.

"Are you okay?" She asks softly when they're back in Bo's room. Lauren shrugs and brushes Salmon's fur with her fingers. She doesn't really understand what she's feeling. Bo bites her lip and sits beside her on the floor. "Do you want me to kiss it better?"

Lauren frowns, her hand stilling on Salmon's fur, "what?"

"My dad used to do it for my mom. When she got quiet and we didn't know what else to do. He'd kiss her face until she felt better."

Lauren looks at Salmon, then at Bo, then she nods. It couldn't hurt.

Bo moves closer. "Close your eyes." She says quietly. Lauren does as she's told. First Bo kisses the back of her left eyelid, then the right, then both of her cheeks, then her forehead, then her chin, then her nose. Lauren laughs and opens her eyes. She finds Bo smiling at her, eyes bright and proud, "better?" She asks.

Lauren nods. "Much better. Thanks."

.

.

The Valentina house doesn't take as long to find new owners as Mrs. Hendrix's did. Bo says it's because no one died in it. That people are less afraid to move in there. Its two weeks into summer when the new family moves in. It's probably the hottest summer Lauren's ever experienced in all her eleven years of life. Bo says that her father has finally -after months of pestering from Bo and Lauren- agreed to install a pool in their backyard. It won't be ready for months though, but just that thought of _someday_ having a pool all of their own makes the two of them giddy. But until then, they'll just have to deal with the unbearable heat.

"Do you think they have a kid our age?" Bo asks, licking her arm where some of her melted ice cream has trickled to. She has always been the messiest ice cream eater Lauren has ever seen. And no matter how many times Lauren tells her _not_ to buy the cone, she doesn't listen ' _I like how crunchy the cone is'._ Is the reason she always gives.

Lauren narrows her eyes a little and removes some dirt from her flip flops. They're old and she should probably get new ones. But Lucy has warned her numerous times not to ask for things. She says things are different now and that they have to make do with what they have. Bo nudges her foot softly, tired of waiting for a response. Lauren licks her lips. They taste like the vanilla ice cream she just had. She's so much better at eating ice cream than Bo is. "Don' know. Have you seen any toys?"

"Kids our age don't play with toys, Lauren." Bo finishes her ice cream cone with three big bites then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, "I haven't seen a bike though, so I doubt they have a kid our age."

Lauren just shrugs. She doesn't care. She has Bo and that's all that matters to her. "Do you want to go to Candy Castle?"

"Do you have money?"

"Some." She reaches into her pockets and pulls out a few coins. She's been babysitting a lot this summer. If she can't ask her parents for money then she might as well work and get her own. She's a growing girl and she has needs. "How much do you have?"

"None. But I could go check in the house. Pretty sure daddy left me money for pizza or something."

Through the years, Lauren has learnt something very vital about Bo's parents; they don't care much about her. They love her, a lot, but they don't care about her. All Bo's dad cares about is his growing company and all Bo's mom cares about is looking pretty. Bo doesn't seem to care that they don't care. As long as she has Lauren and they give her money for whatever she wants, she's perfectly okay.

Lauren nods and calls for Salmon who's playing with Nicklaus The Hippy's grass. She warns Salmon not to run around and ruin things in Bo's house. Through the years, Bo's house has changed immensely. It now looks like less of a house and more of an uptown showroom. They don't even have Bo's parties in here anymore. Mostly the only parties hosted here are the ones Bo's father throws for his business partners, and those ones are eye droopingly boring so Lauren doesn't care much about them.

"Hello dear," Aife says from the stairs, startling Lauren a little.

Lauren smiles at her. It feels forced. She has never liked Aife. She doesn't _not_ like her; she just doesn't feel the same affection for her that she feels for Bo's dad. She thinks it's because she doesn't understand Aife much. All she ever does is look pretty and make the house look pretty. Lauren just finds her extremely superficial. "Hi Mrs. D . You look really nice today." Lauren Lewis is nothing if not polite.

Aife beams and wipes off nonexistent lint off her dress. "Why, thank you dear. You um- you look nice as well."

Lauren scoffs. She's wearing Lucy's old shorts and a shirt that can't decide whether it's black or grey, her flip flops are dirty and old and her hair's misbehaving like it tends to do in summer. She looks _nowhere_ near nice. "Thanks." She says anyway.

Aife smiles politely and looks around, "where's Ysabeu?"

"She's-"

"-here." Bo says walking into the room, then she grabs Lauren's hand. "And now she's leaving. Bye mom."

"Ysabeu, your father's having a company dinner tonight. You need to go get your hair done."

"Later." Bo shouts as she leads Lauren and Salmon out of the house.

"Ysabeu."

" _Bye_ mom."

She shuts the door behind her and they run all the way to their bikes. Bo has a new bike, got it for her eleventh birthday, this one doesn't have a basket at the front because Bo says baskets are for babies, so Salmon doesn't get a free lift. But that's okay since he's quite fond of running beside them. They race all the way to town and Lauren gets a whole ten dollars worth of extra candy because she won. They go to the park, pushing their bikes instead of riding them because it's so damn _hot_.

"Do you feel like you're melting? Cause I feel like I'm melting." Bo says and Lauren laughs at her ridiculousness. She pushes her hair back from where it's stuck on her face and scowls when she sees who's walking towards them. "Crap." Bo mutters, voicing Lauren's exact thoughts.

"Oh look, if it isn't the Siamese twins."

"Fuck off, Kyle." Bo snaps. She's taken to cursing a lot nowadays. Lauren doesn't know where she learnt it from, but for some reason, it makes her sound older than she actually is. "Don't you have filthy beer to deliver or something?"

"Maybe to Lauren's dad." He looks directly at Lauren, knowing he's bound to get a rise out of her. It's no secret to anyone in town that Lauren's father has fallen way too in love with the bottle. He's made a fool of himself enough times for it to be public knowledge. And Kyle has taken to taunting Lauren with that piece of information every chance he gets. Lauren hates him so much. "How's your old man by the way? Pops says he hasn't seen him in days. Which is really bad for business. He single handedly keeps the bar afloat y'know."

"You can go fuck yourself with a spatula, Kyle Jones." Bo says, grabbing Lauren's hand and leading her in the opposite direction.

"I was just making conversation."

"Your toad face will be _making conversation_ with my right fist if you don't leave us the fuck alone."

"I wasn't even talking to you."

"Yeah well, if you know what's good for you, you won't be talking to Lauren either. Go find the edge of a cliff and jump off it. "

"You're a bitch."

"And you're ugly. Guess we all have our burdens to bear."

He glares at Bo, gives Lauren one last smirk then walks away. Lauren feels like she hasn't been breathing right for the past five or so minutes. Like her lungs are too full and her mind is going too fast. She has absolutely no idea why Kyle Jones suddenly decided to start picking on her. She used to think one day it'll stop just like it begun, but it's been almost a year of him pushing her buttons and it doesn't seem like he'll stop anytime soon. In fact, he's just getting worse with each passing day. Usually she's okay at defending herself, her words are never quite as fast or as scathing as Bo's, but she has known Kyle Jones pretty much since the two of them were in diapers, she knows enough embarrassing things about him to hold her own in a verbal match against him. But today he talked about her father and she just clamped. It's something she doesn't know how to deal with –her father's drinking. At home they pretend like it's not happening and when she's alone she makes sure never to think of it. She just – she's not sure if she even _knows_ how to deal with it.

Bo looks at her with pitying eyes and Lauren looks away, she doesn't like being pitied, it makes her feel small at pathetic. Even Salmon seems to know her mood has taken a turn for the worse, he quietly walks close to her, nudging her foot with his head sometimes, trying to cheer her up.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Sure?"

"Yeah." She looks straight ahead. She's won't cry. She won't let herself be that weak.

"I think you should tell someone, like an adult."

Lauren's neck snaps towards Bo's direction so fast she's afraid she might have cracked it. Her eyes are wide, looking at Bo with utter disbelief. "What? You can't be serious."

"I am." Bo says, her tone firm, "this is becoming really serious Lauren. He's no longer just teasing you. This is bullying."

"So you want me to become a _snitch_?"

"I want you to stand up for yourself. This shit is escalating and soon it might turn violent. If you don't tell someone, _I_ will."

Lauren looks at the ribbons on her bike handles. They make her feel irrationally angry, like she's somewhat of a baby. A baby who can't even stand up to a stupid boy, a baby who needs her best friend to defend her. "Fine." She says finally. Her voice tight and upset even to her own ears. She grasps her handles so tightly her hands feel a little painful. "I'll tell an adult."

"Today." It's not a question. Bo Dennis is probably the most persistent person on Earth when she puts her mind to something. "Right now in fact, I'll even come with you."

Lauren wants to protest. But her voice feels stuck in her throat and she's afraid if she forces it out it'll come out as a sob. So she climbs onto her bike and starts cycling furiously, Bo and Salmon right behind her.

She really does mean to go home and tell Lucy everything, if only to get Bo off her back. But when she passes by the Valentina house, there's a girl about her age with the curliest hair Lauren has ever seen, carrying a box into the house. "Hey!" She calls, putting one foot on the ground to steady her bike, intentionally forgetting what she was headed home to do. "Hi." She waves when the girl looks at her, her eyes squinted. "I'm Lauren."

Bo's bike comes to a halt right beside Lauren's just as the curly haired girl is introducing herself. "Valerie. But everyone calls me Val."

Val is _really_ pretty. She has curly hair and dark skin and the darkest shade of brown eyes Lauren has ever seen. They're practically almost black. Lauren smiles at her. "This is Bo, and that's Salmon. Everyone calls him Sally though."

Salmon wags his tail when Val pets him and Bo just nods indifferently when Val greets her. Lauren doesn't think much of it; Bo's always been wary of new people.

"Your dog's cute."

"Thanks. So- you moved into the Valentina house?" She asks more from the want to make conversation than the need to know.

"Yeah." Val looks back at the house like she's confirming it's still there, then she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and looks back at Lauren. "And I'm having a party soon."

" A party? Isn't that a little ambitious? You _just_ moved here." Bo contributes to the conversation for the first time.

Val shrugs, " And a party the best way to meet new people. Plus it'll give me some much needed cred." Bo seems vaguely impressed. Lauren on the other hand, is completely in awe. She could never be brave enough as to do something like throw a party in a town where she knows no one. "So, can I count on you guys to come?"

"You're inviting _us_ to your party?" Lauren and Bo have never been to any parties other than birthday parties and that one Christmas party that the Logans threw and invited everyone in the neighborhood because Mr. Logan wanted to publicly announce his bid to become mayor. Being invited to a party that's _just_ a party makes Lauren feel so grown up.

"Of course I am. You're literally the only friends I have in this whole town. So, will you come? Party's on Friday."

Lauren wants to yell out yes and squeal. But Bo beats her to it with a cool, ' _we'll see'_ which is worlds better than what Lauren's response would have been. Makes them seem less eager. More mature. Lauren's so glad Bo's her friend. She saves her from looking like a fool.

Val just smiles, nods and walks away, "oh," she turns around when she's almost at her door, "bring as many friends as you want to. The more the merrier."

.

.

Lauren is in the middle of a really good dream when Bo shakes her awake so hard she almost goes into shock. "What the hell is your problem?" She grumbles once she's more awake than asleep. Salmon is seated beside, a protective paw on her hip, his eyes glowering at Bo in the semi-darkness. Through the years, he's come to love Bo almost as much as he loves Lauren. But when it comes down to it, Lauren's his favourite human and she knows it. He'd rip off someone's head to protect her if he thought she was in danger. She lifts him into her arms and glares at Bo. "Why'd you wake me up? The sun hasn't even risen yet."

"Do you remember my cousin Elaine?" Bo asks, completely disregarding everything Lauren just said.

Lauren sighs and adjusts herself on the bed. She rubs Salmon's back to lure him back to sleep. "Vaguely. Why?"

"I called her last night."

"I'd really appreciate it if you got to the part where you explain _why_ you're in my room before sunrise."

"Maybe if you'd shut up for five consecutive seconds-"

" _Bo…"_

"Fine. Anyway. You remember that she's been on a lot of dates, yeah?"

Of course Lauren remembers. It was quite the scandal in the Lewis household when she told her mom that Bo's twelve year old cousin was dating. She cannot for the life of her recall what point she was trying to prove by divulging that information to her mom, but she does remember that it did not go down well. "What does your cousin have to do with you waking me up at ridiculous o'clock?"

"Well, I called her for advice, 'cause some of her dates were at parties, and she told me we'll need hot clothes and make up. We don't have hot clothes, and we don't have make up."

"Then we'll buy some." Lauren says around a shrug. It seems pretty simple to her honestly.

"We could, but we don't know the difference between hot clothes and regular clothes. I mean, _I_ don't. Do you?"

"Hot clothes are short? Lauren tries.

Bo rolls her eyes. "I have short clothes that are definitely _not_ hot." She frowns a bit, seemingly thinking her words through, "or maybe they are. I don't know. The point is, we need _help."_

"We'll ask the lady at the store."

"No. Asking adults for help makes them think you're a baby. No. We need someone closer to our age."

Lauren finally sees exactly where Bo is going with this. Her shoulders sag and her voice becomes whiny, "no. Please no."

"She's our only hope, Lauren."

"But I hate asking her for help. She holds things over my head for _forever_."

"Do you _want_ us to look like fools at our first ever grown up party."

"No." Lauren grumbles.

"Then you'll take this one for the team." Bo says with finality before kissing her temple. "I gotta go. My dad doesn't know I sneaked out and if he finds out he'll throw a fit. Goodnight."

"It's morning." Lauren says just to be difficult.

"Whatever." Bo shrugs, kisses Lauren's forehead one last time, then leaves.

.

.

Lucy's room stopped being pink the day she turned fifteen. Lauren remembers Lucy trying to pass down some of her ugly pink stuff to her, but Lauren wasn't having that, she's always been a green kinda girl anyway. Now, Lucy's room is a blend of black and red and some blue thrown around haphazardly. She has an entire wall dedicated to pictures of her and her friends and even a couple of Salmon. There's not a single photo of Lauren on there, not that she minds, Lucy's wall f photos is three different kinds of hideous.

She's frowning at a photo of Lucy and one of her hippy friends who wear beanies and scarves in summer when Lucy bangs the bedroom door closed and startles her.

"Why are you in my room spreading childish germs?"

Lauren rolls her eyes, "first, that made _zero_ sense. Second, I'm _eleven_ , hardly a child."

"What do want, Lauren? I have less than no time for your smart mouth."

"Well." She wrings her hands together. She hates Bo so much for making her do this, "I need a favour."

"No." Lucy says without even taking a second to think about it. Lauren resists the urge to roll her eyes. Sometimes she finds it hard to believe she and Lucy are related in any way.

"You didn't even hear what it is."

"Don't need to. I'm still not going to do it."

"I'll do your chores for a week."

"A month."

"That's _exploitation."_

"A month or no favour."

"Fine." She grumbles and drops herself on Lucy's bed as ungracefully as she possibly can. She _hates_ doing dishes and now she'll have to do them for a whole damn month. She really is going to kill Bo.

"Well?" Lucy prompts impatiently.

Lauren sighs and lies on her side, "you know the family that just moved next door."

"No."

"Lucy!"

"What? I honestly don't know them."

"Whatever. Anyway. They have a daughter around my age and she's having a party tomorrow."

"Good for her?" It comes out as a question. Lucy's brow arched in confusion. Lauren groans and face palms, she really got all the brains in this family.

"Bo and I are invited."

"And you need my permission to go?"

"You're not my parent. I don't need your permission to do anything."

"Then what's the point of this whole conversation?"

"Well- we've never been to a party before. So. We- we kinda need help getting ready." Lucy's smile stretches from her lips to her eyes in a sort of sinister way that makes her look like one of the villains for one of Kyle's stupid black and white silent movies. Lauren scowls, she doesn't like that look. The last time Lucy directed that look at Lauren, Lauren ended up with blue hair for three days and Bo wouldn't stop laughing at her. "What's with the look?"

"What look?"

"That stupid joker like look you've got on your face. I swear to heaven Lucy if you come anywhere near my hair I will amputate you."

"Do you even know what amputate means?"

"I'm eleven, not stupid. And whatever it is that's going on through your head, you can forget it. I'm not doing it."

"Whatever." Lucy rolls her eyes and gets up from her bed, "tell me more about this party."

.

.

Somehow, Valerie gets Lauren's phone number and calls at around twelve on Friday, freaking out over how she doesn't have anything ready and the party's only hours away from starting. It takes Lauren about five minutes to figure out that in her own skewed way, Valerie's asking for her help.

"Do you- do you want us to come over and help?" She asks so that it seems like she's the one offering to help rather than Valerie _asking_ for help. Lauren has always been good at figuring people out, and Valerie strikes her like a really proud person.

"Could you?"

"Yeah. 'Course we could. Let me just talk to Bo real fast then we'll be right over."

So in the end, Lucy doesn't even get to help Bo and Lauren with their makeup after all. But she does lend them some of her clothes that she rarely wears anymore and are party appropriate. And she also gives them a few pointers in the makeup department. Which ends up not even being useful because Valerie is the _queen_ of makeup and she does Lauren's and Bo's makeup as a thank you for helping her prepare for her party.

It's a good party. Lauren doesn't mean to brag but she and Bo did hella good work with the decorations and Valerie's older brother, Hale, invites himself and some of his friends to the party and his friends bring their friends and their friends bring three bottles of tequila. So it really is a grown up party.

One of Hale's friends, Vex or something, suggests that they play a drinking game. Lauren's wary of that. Being at a party where alcohol is served is one thing. Being at a party where alcohol is served and having to drink said alcohol is another ball game all together.

"You okay?" Bo whispers into Lauren's ear as everyone finds somewhere to sit in the human circle, "'cause we can leave if you're not."

Lauren bites her bottom lip. She really wants to leave. But Bo seems like she's having so much fun and like she's excited for this game. And Lauren doesn't want to be _that_ friend. Still though, there's alcohol to be drunk and she's so uncomfortable with that notion that she can feeling her skin getting clammy just from the thought of it.

"You don't have to come with." She says to be considerate.

Bo rolls her eyes like Lauren has just said the dumbest thing. "If you leave, then I leave. Okay?" She pats Lauren's knee comfortingly. Lauren smiles a little at her. Bo is just about the very best thing Lauren has ever wished for.

"Aww," a voice cuts through their moment; Lauren doesn't even have to look up to know that it's Kyle. She's way too familiar with his annoying voice. "Is the little baby feeling scared of a little alcohol?"

"Shut your fucking mouth Kyle. You're stinking up the whole place." Bo is quick to snap.

Kyle's eyes flash with something scary before they settle on Lauren. "One would think you'd jump at the first opportunity to be just like your old man. Such a disappointing daughter you are."

"I said _shut up."_

"You always going to let your little rabid dog fight all your battles?"

"What did you just call me?"

Lauren places a hand on Bo's thigh before things escalate even further. Everyone is looking at the three of them now and she feels embarrassment creep up her spine. She swallows hard and hopes her voice comes off as hard as she intends for it to. "I don't know what your problem with me is, but you need to let it go."

"Me? Have a problem with you?" Kyle asks like it's the most absurd thing he's ever heard. Like he doesn't go out of his way to make Lauren's life a living hell, "your father's an alcoholic and your mother shows her tits for a living. You're way beneath having a problem with."

It starts slow, the boiling like sensation at the pit of her stomach. Then it spreads to her veins and her lungs and her head and suddenly she can't breathe right and she can't see straight and it feels like if she doesn't fist her palms she's going to strangle something. She is pretty sure she has never felt anger like this in all her life. "You're a _liar._ " She spits out and it echoes all through the room. Everybody's looking at her and Kyle like they're in a wrestling match. She wants to strangle them all. "You're a fucking _liar."_

"Am I?" Kyle seems and sounds defiant, but there's something that looks a lot like fear in his eyes. He knows he's gone too far this time. Still, he trudges on, determined not to lose, "because the pictures in my cousin's phone of your mom in a _Tit-Bits_ uniform tell a different story."

"Lauren-" Bo pulls her hand, urging her to stand up so they can leave.

Lauren narrows her eyes at Kyle. "You and your cousin are both filthy fucking liars."

"Pictures don't lie."

"Shut the fuck up Kyle, _god._ Don't you ever get tired of speaking shit? Come on, Lauren, let's go. This party was a bust anyway. Val, next time you have a party, try not to invite trash. Lauren, let's _go."_

Lauren glares at Kyle for almost an entire minute, yanks her hand out of Bo' grasp and stomps all the way home and all the way to her room, ignoring Bo's calls for her to slow down.

.

.

She waits up 'til minutes past three in the morning. Bo tries knocking on her door for almost an hour, then when she finally clues in that Lauren needs space, she sends her around fifty texts, some of them are jokes, some of them are her asking Lauren to call her whenever; Lauren loves her more than she loves anything else on Earth.

Someone comes home at around one. Lauren doesn't bother going downstairs, judging from the singing and stumbling on random objects, it's her dad. She has perfected the art of staying the hell away from him when he's drunk so much so that she's got it down to a science.

When the door opens at half past three, she doesn't even bother waiting to confirm that it's her mom. She just rushes out of her room and down the stairs and catches her mom just as she's removing her coat, she frowns when she sees Lauren, her face morphing into a look of confusion. "Lauren, honey, what are you doing up at this time? You didn't have a nightmare, did you?"

"Where are you coming from?" Her voice is tight, measured; it sounds a lot like her mom's when she's talking to her dad.

"What? Lauren, what kind of question-"

"Kyle Jones says you work at Tit-Bits. Says you show people your tits for a living. It's not true, is it?"

"Laur-"

" _Is it?"_ Her mom looks away, Lauren feels bile rise up her throat, she makes a pained face and takes a step back, the weight of what she just learnt overwhelming her. "Oh my god."

"Lauren."

" _Don't_ talk to me." She snaps before stomping all the way up to the stairs and into her room. She literally throws herself on her bed and buries her face so hard into her pillow it's a little hard to breathe. Then she cries herself to sleep.

.

.

Lauren holes herself up in her room for five days, only leaving when she needs to use the bathroom. Salmon is of course on her side, but sometimes he forgets and leaves to go play with Lucy or eat- the traitor. Bo comes by on the first day to try and convince her to leave her room, but Lauren's not having it. So the next day Bo comes with supplies, or in other words, a disgusting amount of junk food. They make a tent of blankets in the middle of Lauren's room and pretend that they're camping in the woods. But on day three, Bo's dad comes for her. Apparently he has one of his fancy company dinners and Bo has to make an appearance. "I'll be with you in spirit, brave soldier." She whispers before she leaves. It makes Lauren laugh for the first time in days. Her mom tries to get her to come out on the fourth day but Lauren's not having it. She remains stoic, staring at her wall that needs a new paint job the whole time her mom's talking. Finally, the woman gives up and places a soft kiss on Lauren's temple, "I love you honey." Then she leaves. Lauren cries herself to sleep that night too.

On the fifth day, Lucy comes barging into her room, she looks pissed and Lauren honestly has no time for her. She's running low on supplies and for some reason, punishing her mom by holing herself up in her room is turning out to be more of a self-punishment than Lauren thought it would be. There's only so much a person can do inside their room for five whole days.

"What do you want, Lucy? I don't have time for your teenage drama." She lays on her side, staring at her wall, a small frown on her face; she really should get around to painting it. Maybe if she bribes her with enough candy Bo will agree to help her.

"Why are you being an ungrateful little brat?"

"Why are you in my room shouting at me?" She yells, sitting up and looking at Lucy with such a scalding look she can feel her eyes burn with it, " _I'm_ not the one who flashes boobs at Tit-Bits for a living."

Lucy narrows her eyes so much they're practically just slits on her face now. The look on her face is terrible and more than a little scary. It makes Lauren's heart beat too fast from fear. Lucy has never looked at her like that. _No one_ has ever looked at her like that. She half thinks Lucy's going to slap her. "You're the most ungrateful little _twat_ to ever walk this planet." Lauren's eyes burn and blur. Something hard and suffocating settles on her throat. She balls her fists; no way on Earth is she going to let herself cry. _She's_ the one who's been wronged. She has done nothing to feel apologetic over. "Mom serves drinks at Tit-Bits. And even if she didn't, what makes you think you have any right to judge her. She has bills to pay and your fucking mouth to feed and she's doing the best she can."

"She could have found a job anywhere else." Lauren whispers. She feels a lot less validated in her anger than she did before this conversation begun. She also feels more like a child than she has this entire week. Small and so completely out of her depth.

"No. She couldn't. I know you know dad has a problem. And I know you know it's earned us quite the reputation in town. People wouldn't hire her. And those who would were paying shit. Tit-Bits was literally the only option she had."

"I-"

"Fucked up. And you need to apologize. You wanted to be grown up, right? Well grownups admit when they've made mistakes. And you need to do better Lauren. "

That night, she leaves her room with her head hanging low. Her father is in one of his moods, the ones where he pretends he's the man Lauren used to know. He makes his famous _'anything in the fridge_ ' pizza and sets the table. He and Lucy tell each other jokes while Lauren just plays with a stray string on the table cloth, feeling so completely disconnected from everything.

"You alright, kiddo?"

"'M'fine."

He looks at her like he's trying to catch her in a lie and she looks away. After a minute or so, he nods and ruffles her hair, then resumes his pizza making with Lucy.

Before, like, before it happened about ten times, Lauren used to get excited out of her mind whenever her father was one of these moods. Whenever his eyes got clear and his speech wasn't slurred, she would think 'this is it, he's back'. And she sit with him and talk about anything that came to mind and just be so _happy._ But then days later he'd come home smelling like spilt beer and laughing too loud with empty eyes and her heart would break. She fell for it about three times before she realized that she was being stupid. Now whenever he's in his 'sober moods' –as she likes to call them- she stays as unattached from him as she possibly can. It makes losing him all over again that much easier.

Her dad and Lucy set the table and keep up with their endless banter all through dinner. After dinner, he brings out ice cream that he bought that afternoon and they share a spoon while watching cartoons. Later, when everyone is tired and sleepy, Lauren offers to do the dishes.

"You sure? 'Cause I can do them myself, it's no problem."

"I'm sure." She gives him a small smile, "you and Lucy cooked, I should do my fair part."

He nods and smiles at her, kisses her forehead then leaves for his bedroom.

She does the dishes then sits at the kitchen table, texting with Bo about random things and trying to gather her courage. Her mother gets in at around two thirty, her bag hitched over her shoulder, eyes red and tired and walking like her feet ache. It hurts Lauren to look at her.

"Honey." Her eyes widen, surprised to see Lauren up so late. Surprised to see Lauren at all really, "what are-?"

"Daddy made pizza." Lauren whispers, swallowing because her throat suddenly feels dry before continuing, "would you like some?"

"Uh yes. Yes. That would be lovely. Thank you."

Lauren nods and quietly puts a plate with three slices of pizza in the microwave. "You want something to drink?" She asks more to make conversation than anything. She's not ready to look at her mother just yet.

"Water's fine."

"Kay." She nods and pulls a bottle of water from the fridge and places it in front of her mom. There's nothing left to do now, so she sits down reluctantly and wrings her fingers. She doesn't know where to starts, apologies have never really been her thing.

"You said your dad made this?" Her mom's voice cuts into the silence. Lauren looks up and nods. Her mom slimes kindly, "it's good."

"He was in a good mood today." Lauren looks at her fingers for a moment, arranging her words in her head, then she looks at her mom, "do you think it'll last this time?"

"Mhmm?"

"Daddy's mood. I mean, do you think this is it. That he's better now?" Her mom's pizza stills on its journey to her mouth. She sighs and places it back on her plate, looking at Lauren with something that looks too much like pity. Lauren rolls her eyes. "Forget I asked. It was a stupid question."

"Honey…people grieve in different ways. And, your grandpa was _really_ important to your dad."

"It's been almost four years though," Lauren points out, her brows pinched in confusion. She doesn't mean to sound mean or anything, but it _has_ been almost four years. "Isn't it time he moved on?"

"Grieving is a different process for everyone. He'll move on when he's ready to."

"And meanwhile you'll just keep working at Tit-Bits because no one else will hire a drunkard's wife."

" _Lauren!"_ Her mom's yells, completely scandalized.

"Whatever. It's late. I should head to bed."

Mrs. Lewis sighs and pushes her plate aside. She palms her face and for a moment, Lauren thinks she's going to cry. But then she looks back up at Lauren, the kitchen light is shining right on her face, it makes her look soft and tired. So- so _tired._ Lauren doesn't even know how she moves around the table and throws her arms around her. Her mom gasps, caught by surprise, but she recovers quick enough and hugs her back. "I know you're trying mom." Lauren whispers, "I know you're doing the best you can. And I'm going to try and be my best self too. For you. Okay?"

Mrs. Lewis sniffs and hugs Lauren a little tighter, "I love you darling. I love you so much."

"Love you too, mom."

* * *

Summer is awkward after that. Lauren constantly feels like some sort of weight has been put on her shoulder. Like she has something to prove, she just doesn't know what exactly. Valerie invites her and Bo over one afternoon for _girl time-_ which is just another word for an afternoon of her apologizing to Lauren for something that's hardly her fault. Lauren tells her she doesn't mind, what happened happened. It can't be changed. She still rides her bike to town with Bo and she still eats candy 'till she physically cannot anymore. They go to sleepovers at Valerie's and sometimes play tricks on Hale and his broody friend Dyson. On the outside, she looks just like any eleven year old girl. But on the inside, she knows she's not. Something changed this summer, something that made her grow up faster than she's supposed to.

Middle school comes with its own special brand of problems. First, there's the fact that ever since Val's party, some people have started whispering some really nasty things about her. Which makes it a little hard to make friends. Not that Lauren cares about making friends all that much. She has Bo and she has Salmon and surprisingly, she and Lucy have grown quite close in the past few months. So she's perfectly okay with not having friends. Except, sometimes she needs people to talk to. Bo has proven to be quite the social butterfly, blooming and attracting everyone with her large personality. And Lauren's happy for her. She really is. She just wishes she had someone to hang out with when Bo's hanging out with her other friends. It just gets lonely sometimes. She supposes she could hang out with Valerie, and she does sometimes, it's just not the same as hanging out with Bo.

All Valerie ever wants to do is read magazines, try on clothes and disturb Hale whenever Dyson's visiting. Lauren thinks Valerie might have a little crush on Dyson, but whenever she mentions it, Valerie's eye go wide and her lips become pursed and she doesn't talk to Lauren for days after. So Lauren makes it a point not to mention Valerie's crush on Dyson.

Days when she gets to just hang out with Bo are the best, even if it's just to do homework.

"What did you get for number…" her shoulders drop and she throws a pillow at Bo, "you're _still_ on that contraption?"

"It's a _phone_." Bo says indignantly, throwing the pillow back at Lauren who ducks and laughs. "And I'm not still on it, I was just answering a text."

"Ooh, a text. From whom, do tell."

"Why are you speaking like some tenth century snob?" Bo chuckles out, picking her pen up and pretending to concentrate on her book.

"Don't be an evasive jerk. Who were you texting? Tell me."

"Dyson."

Lauren frowns, "Val's Dyson?"

"He's Val's?"

"He's _old."_

"He's thirteen, Lauren. Hardly a grandpa. And what did you mean by Val's Dyson?"

"Val kinda has a crush on him. Well, she denies it to the pits of hell but it's pretty obvious."

"Oh."

"What? Do _you_ like him?" She teases.

Bo makes a face and kicks her leg, " _no._ I just find it odd that Val does. He's her brother's best friend, pretty sure there's a rule against liking your brother's best friend."

Lauren shrugs. She has a lot to think about and rules concerning liking teenage boys is not one of them. Her dad's drinking problem is becoming worse by the day she she's pretty certain she hasn't seen her mom once this entire week. She tried waiting for her once, but she ended up falling asleep and found herself in her own bed the next day. Honestly, boys are the furthest things from her mind right now.

"Speaking of," Bo cuts through her thoughts and Lauren blinks lazily at her to bring her mind back to the present, "have you decided who you're gonna go to the dance with?" Lauren groans and covers her face with a pillow. Bo laughs. "Come on, it's going to be fun. I think you should ask Mark. He seems to like you."

"School dances are _never_ fun _._ And Mark doesn't like me, he like studying with me."

Bo rolls her eyes like Lauren's being completely oblivious. But Bo's the oblivious one. There's nothing going on between Lauren and Mark. They just study together. Yeah, he's cute and nice and has offered to punch Kyle on Lauren's behalf more than once. But that doesn't mean Lauren wants to _date_ him.

"Whatever. So- there's no one?" Bo asks, Lauren shakes her head. There's really not. "Well, do you want to go together?"

Lauren's brows arch almost on their own volition. "You mean together like, the two of us?"

"Yeah."

"But we're supposed to ask boys." Lauren points out. She doesn't know why she's getting defensive over this. Why Bo suggesting that they go to the dance together makes something heavy and uncomfortable settle at the pit of her stomach. She and Bo have done everything together since they were seven. This shouldn't be any different. But for some reason, it feels like it is.

"Yeah, but boys are gross." Bo sits up, looking at Lauren with earnest eyes. Her words fall off her tongue so easily and Lauren just doesn't understand how she's so okay, suggesting something of this manner. "Besides, _you're_ the only person I like dancing with. No one else can keep up."

"I don't know, Bo. The rules clearly say a girl has to ask a _boy_ to the dance."

"Fuck the rules. Come on Lo, it's gonna be fun. We can do our spice girls routine and floor the whole class."

"Our spice girls routine is shit. We created it when we were like seven."

Bo narrows her eyes and leans on the bed, she tries looking at Lauren sternly but a smile is playing on her lips, "look here now. What we will not do, on this day of the lord, is slander our _amazing_ spice girl routine. I will not stand for it."

Lauren snorts and turns back to her assignments. A full minute doesn't even pass before Bo is on her, tickling her so hard Lauren can't breathe. "Get off me you oaf." She tries saying around a laugh, but Bo is relentless.

"Say you'll go to the dance with me."

"No."

"Then I won't stop 'till you pee yourself."

"Fine. I'll go to the dance with you." Bo stops immediately. Lauren's ribs hurt and the back of her head hurts and she has tears in her eyes. "I hate you." She whispers, her breath coming out in pants.

Bo shrugs and moves back to her books, "hate me all you want, as long as you go to the dance with me."

.

.

The dance is a success. Lucy accepts to help them get ready without putting up much of a fuss. She doesn't even bribe Lauren, which is a first to be honest. Lauren's mother drives them there because it's on her way and she's on her way to work anyway. People look at them a little strangely at the beginning, but then Bo pulls Lauren to the middle of the gym –that's acting as a dance hall- and proceeds to start dancing their silly spice girls routine. Of course Lauren can't let her look silly alone, so she joins in. And it's arms flailing and hair going every which way and heads thrown back in laughter and before they know it, everyone else has joined in.

They drink too much punch after they're done dancing and when Lucy comes to pick them up, they convince her to drive them to Mae for chocolate chip pancakes. All in all, it's one of the best nights Lauren has had in a long time.

It becomes a tradition, going to the dance together. People stop questioning it and boys stop asking either of them to dances, it's like some sort of unwritten rule that they'll always just go together. Lauren wouldn't have it any other way.

The summer before she turns thirteen feels like the beginning of an end. She and Bo ride their bikes less and hang out with other people more. They go out for sleepovers at Valerie who invites Tamsin who comes with some of her friends. They usually talk about boys and kissing and Lauren didn't know it was possible to ever feel so out of place.

One of Tamsin's friends, Stacey, who speaks more from her nose than the mouth and is the only one in the group with boobs so she seems to think that somehow makes her better than the other girls, brings a cigarette to a sleep over one night. It's already half smoked and it looks like the cheap kind that Lenny smokes sometimes. They lock Val's door so that the boy's don't walk in on them and open all the windows _and_ switch on the fan. Lauren thinks they're going through a lot of trouble for a stick of Lung Cancer, but she doesn't say anything. She watches quietly as the stick goes around, each girl taking a puff and passing it on. Her hand trembles slightly when it's her turn.

"You have to do it." Tamsin whispers, it sounds like a threat. "Everyone else has done it. Don't be a wimp."

"Don't talk to her like that." Bo snaps. If she doesn't want to do it then she won't."

Lauren places her hand on Bo's knee to calm her down, "it's okay. I'll do it." She takes a small puff and holds it in a little, making sure it goes nowhere near her lungs then she lets it out. "Happy now?" She raises a defiant eyebrow at Tamsin. Tamsin rolls her eyes.

It becomes a routine, sharing a cigarette when they go for the sleepovers. Once, Valerie sneaks up a bottle of her father's scotch and they each take a turn taking a swig of it. But it burns when it goes down the throat and it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth and Lauren's glad when they all agree to never try it again because it makes Valerie and Stacey vomit something awful.

Sometimes she and Bo decline the sleepover invites and just stay at Lauren's and play with Salmon or mess around with Lucy's make up. Those are Lauren's favourite days. They feel more like normal than anything else does. But those days are few and far between and as much as she hates to admit it, she knows that a part of her childhood has ended and there's no way of getting it back.

* * *

Lucy leaves Edwardsville three day after Lauren turns thirteen. She and Lauren drive to the store for boxes and Lauren spends the whole night helping her sort out her stuff. Lucy gives Lauren some of her hippie stuff and even takes one of Lauren and Bo's photos to hang in her dorm room.

"I'm gonna miss you, big head."

"My head is perfectly sized, thank you very much." Lauren retorts, scratching behind Salmon's ear. He's grown so big now. And lazy too. Only wants to be cuddled and to eat and sleep. "I still don't get why you have to move all the way across the country. Chester has perfectly good schools."

"Chester is an hour away from here."

"That's the point."

"No, the point is going far away. Somewhere no one even remotely knows me. The point is getting a fresh start."

"Fresh starts are overrated." Lauren say petulantly and sits up. She picks Lucy's snow globe and shakes it a little, watching as the fake snow swirls around. "Christmas is going to be so weird without you around."

"You'll be fine."

"I know I'll be fine. I mean, all the money that mom would've wasted on your present will go to buying me a present so of course I'll be fine. Doesn't mean it still won't be weird."

Lucy snorts and sits beside Lauren on the bed. She ruffles Lauren's hair a bit and Lauren smacks her hand away. She doesn't even know how the two of them got to be so close again. "I'll call you."

"Please don't." She groans and makes a face, "your phone voice gives me the creeps."

"Why you little-" Lucy tackles her to the mattress and Lauren laughs, trying to pull away and yelling at Salmon, who's just looking at them lazily, to rescue her. Finally, Lucy calms down a bit and look down at Lauren fondly. "You'll take care of yourself, right?"

"Haven't I always?" Lauren retorts, fixing her shirt a little.

Lucy rolls her eyes. "I'm serious. I know- I know things aren't exactly smooth sailing around here but you've always been so good at taking care of yourself. You and Bo. You're great at taking care of each other. Don't lose that, okay?" Lauren nods. She bites her lip, hoping to distract herself from her burning eyes. Lucy smiles at her softly. "Come on big head. It's time to start making dinner."

Dinner that night is loud and happy. Lauren's mom leaves work early in order to be present and her dad drinks the bare minimum in order to be present too. Lauren and Bo talk over each other all through dinner and Lucy makes a chocolate cake that's half cooked but everyone still eats it anyway.

They wake up at around four the next morning in order to drive her to the bus station. The ride is quiet. Lucy's on her phone, Bo's sleeping on Lauren's shoulder and Lauren's looking out the window, wondering how she's going to deal with this new life arrangement now. Lucy might have been annoying, but at least she was _there._ Now Lauren will have to deal with life at home all by herself and the concept is scary as hell.

"Remember what I said, okay?" Lucy whispers as they're hugging goodbye.

Lauren sniffles. "Okay."

Lucy presses a kiss into her hair and Lauren can't hold back the tears no matter how hard she tries.

"Take care of her." Lucy says to Bo, hugging her too.

"I always do."

Lucy chuckles and hugs Bo tighter. "I'll miss you, Lauren's annoying shadow."

"Hey. I have a name y'know."

Lucy laughs and kisses them both. Then Lauren's mom tells them to wait in the car as she says goodbye to Lucy. Lauren sits quietly, her legs tight together and her hands on her lap. It's actually finally hitting her that Lucy's leaving. That she'll be alone in the house on the nights when her father is so loud it's scary. She'll have no one to run to when he's angry and breaking things. No one will be there to tell her that everything will be okay when her father and mother start shouting at each other in the dead of the night. She bites her lip so hard she can taste blood.

"Hey." Bo lace their fingers together on Lauren's lap and uses her peers into Lauren's eyes with brown sincere eyes. She just makes Lauren feel like crying that much more. "Hey. Everything's going to be okay. I'm right here. Everything's going to be fine." She kisses the back of Lauren's palm and her cheeks and her forehead. Her lips are soft and warm and she smells like coconut body wash and a little bit of sleep. Lauren wishes so badly that she could believe her. Life would be so much easier if she just could. But she can't. Because no matter what Bo says, everything's _not_ going to be alright.

Everything has changed now. Everything's different.

 _ **End of part 1.**_


	2. Part 2 Gasoline

_**Thank you all so much for reading the first chapter, I didn't think anyone would to be honest. Thank you**_ _ **especially**_ _ **to those who actually reviewed the story, your thoughts on what I wrote made my day. To answer a few questions, yes, this is a rewrite. It will be in five or more parts, and the basic plotline will be exactly the same as the other '**_ _Broken'_ _ **the only difference is the writing style and a few added secondary plotlines. And yes, most of the tags (but not all of them) will directly involve Bo and Lauren.**_

 _ **Okay. I'm done rambling.**_

 ** _This chapter is possible because Maggie is patient and nice and never refused to answer my invasive questions, no matter what time of day or night I asked. TYSM._**

* * *

 _ **Trigger warnings for;**_ _Depression, Internalized homophobia, Homophobia, Physical abuse. E.D, S.I., Alcoholism, Really bad coping mechanisms, internalized self-hate, Dubious consent, Underlying themes of Transphobia, Domestic violence, Verbal abuse, Suicidal Thoughts &Tendencies._

* * *

 _ **Part Two; Gasoline.**_

 _I feel this emptiness in my chest. It feels surreal, but I'm feeling stressed._

* * *

Valerie's mom dies a day before Christmas. Lauren's mom breaks the news to Lauren gently and for a minute after she's given Lauren the news, Lauren wonders _why_ she's being so soft, Lauren's not the one who just lost a parent. Then she wonders if she's being insensitive, if she's a bad person. She wonders if there's something wrong with her. "Is Val okay?" She asks, because that's what normal people are supposed to ask.

"I uh- I don't know, honey. But I don't think she is."

Lauren nods. She plays with the bottle of water in her hands, "can I go over and see her?" She and Val aren't exactly the best of friends. Lauren doesn't really have friends who aren't Bo or Mark. But they're close enough, and it seems like the right thing to do.

"Of course you can. I think she'll need all the support she can get."

There's something that feels a lot like relief welling up in Lauren's chest. It makes her feel warm and sick to her stomach both at the same time. Her dad's drinking hasn't become worse, but it has made him louder and more liable to pick fights. He shouts over everything and anything. And any night that Lauren can get away from him is one she counts as a blessing.

"I'll go pack my bag and see if Bo wants to come with."

Bo does want to come with, which is a good thing since she's better at people than Lauren is. Val's eyes are red and wide when she opens the door for them. She doesn't say anything, just lets them in and walks to her bedroom. They do their best to cheer her up; watch her favourite movies, listen to her favourite songs, and sometimes it seems to work. Her lips lift up in something resembling a smile and she takes one or two bites out of the sandwiches they make her. But most of the time, no amount of cheering up works. Most of the time she curls herself into a tiny human ball, like she's trying to disappear altogether, and sobs so quietly that it hurts more than if she was screaming on top of her lungs. During those times, Bo and Lauren learn that just being there is all they can do. They cover her with their bodies like they're trying to shield her from some of the pain and then they just let her cry.

Valerie doesn't want them to go back home. Bo says she can't stay. Bo's father is big on family holidays. The Dennises always have their house decorated by professionals and all their meals cooked by the best chefs Mrs. Dennis can find in the fancy magazines that she reads all the time. Then they get their family photo taken by a professional and they turn it into a calendar. Lauren thinks it's all too much work and way too showy just to impress Mr. Dennis's colleagues. But to each their own.

"I'll be back as soon as I get the chance." Bo's voice sounds like a promise.

Valerie nods and looks at Lauren, she doesn't even try hiding the hopefulness on her voice. "You'll stay, right?"

Lauren pats her hand and gives her a small smile, "of course I'll stay. I just have to call my mom and tell her, okay?" It might sound like she's doing Valerie a favour, but it's the other way 'round. Christmases at the Lewis household are nightmares. Lauren's mother spends the day cooking and picking after Lauren's father, and the night at Tit-Bits, trying to earn a living. Lauren's father spends it drinking and making jokes that no one but him finds hilarious. Lucy hasn't turned up for Christmas since she left town. In fact, she hasn't been back _once_ since she left. She always has an excuse; assignments, she's saving on money, whatever she can think of really. Lauren wants to resent her for it, but she can't. It would be hypocritical if she did, considering she spends Christmas with her headphones on, waiting for it to be over.

Lauren's mom doesn't seem to care much that Lauren won't be home for Christmas. In fact, she sounds a little relieved. Nowadays Lauren thinks her mother walks around with her breath held in, just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

.

.

.

Valerie's mom is buried on a Saturday, December twenty sixth. Valerie wears one of her mother's old dresses. The black color against her skin looks stunning and her hair is held up in a rare tight bun. Her eyes are big with sadness and her skin is soft with it. Lauren has never seen anyone so pretty with sadness before. She feels sick if she looks at Valerie for too long. Feels like a bad person. Feels _wrong._

Valerie insists that Lauren and Bo sit with her up front, with the family. The mass is sad, quiet. People cry into the handkerchiefs and Valerie doesn't cry at all. She looks right ahead with dry eyes and a sort of strength Lauren doesn't think any fifteen year old is supposed to need.

The service is a blur of tears from Mr. Santiago, strangled breathing from people around Lauren, and an almost detached sort of silence from Valerie. Before Lauren knows it, they're taking the coffin from the church and towards the burial grounds. It's almost surreal to think that Mrs. Santiago is inside that box. Lauren had never been exactly close to Mrs. Santiago, but she has known her since she was eleven years old. She has slept in her house and eaten her food and seen her laugh and just be _alive_ and to think that she's just not anymore is almost impossible to wrap her mind around.

The coffin is carried all the way to the burial grounds in silence and Lauren keeps sneaking glances at Valarie, waiting for her to snap, to break down and start crying. But Valerie just remains stoic, looks right ahead. And Lauren wonders if things are piling up inside Valerie like they do for her sometimes, if she too is heaping up emotions the way people stack Legos, and if she feels like one day they're going to become too much and blow up and leave her with nothing inside.

The Vicar's voice sounds like gravel when he speaks. Lauren holds both Valerie's and Bo's hand. Bo's is sweaty, and it occurs to Lauren that Bo has never been to a funeral before, so she squeezes her hand softly to let her know that it'll be okay.

" _Earth to Earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. Amen."_

Mr. Santiago's the first to step forward; he drops a flower inside the grave. It's pink, like the kind Mrs. Santiago used to put on their dining table. Once, Lauren found her sniffing one, she said they were her favourite ones, that they reminded her of some sort of youthfulness. She'd said it with a smile; Mrs. Santiago did almost everything with a smile.

Hale steps up next, drops a purple flower. Lauren knows for a fact that it's from their garden. She once helped Valerie tend to them.

Valerie goes right after Hale. Her cold hand slips out of Lauren's hand and Lauren wonders what she'll drop in the grave, she doesn't have a flower. But Valerie just stares into the hole, then she pulls something from her coat pocket and drops it inside.

Then the vicar says something else. Something Lauren doesn't hear. But after that, it's over.

Just like that, it's over.

* * *

 _ **.**_

The Santiagos go to Valerie's grandma's on the twenty seventh. Mr. Santiago thinks it'll help, being away from everything. Lauren and Bo help Valerie pack; Valerie hasn't left her bed to go anywhere but to the toilet or said a word to anyone. They pack as many clothes as they think she might need and hug her for almost five whole minutes in front of Mr. Santiago's car. "We'll miss you." They say. Valerie doesn't say anything, she doesn't even look like she heard what they just said, but she gives them a blank smile anyway.

They watch as the car goes away, and that feeling Lauren always has when something big changes creeps up her spine. She holds on tight to Bo's hand, like she's afraid she'll float away if she doesn't.

"You wanna go to Candy Castle?"

They haven't been to Candy Castle in a while. They're fifteen now, candy's been replaced by coffee and Miss. Flynn's smiles have been replaced by boys' smirks. But just for today, Lauren wants to pretend she's seven again; untouched by death and mistakes that aren't even hers. She just wants to be happy, even if it's just pretend.

"Yeah," Bo nods, "should we take our bikes?"

Lauren's lips stretch into a smile. She can't remember the last time they took their bikes anywhere, "could we?"

"Course we could."

Her smile spreads wider on her lips. And for a moment, she feels happy. And nowadays, that's all she can ask for.

.

.

Lauren walks back into her house at around seven. Her limps feel heavy and she has a slight stomach ache from eating too much candy and laughing too loud for too long at Bo's ridiculousness. All things considered, today was a good day and she's looking forward to taking a shower and sleeping 'til tomorrow. Or maybe next year, she hasn't decided yet.

But every single thing goes to shit the minute she opens the door.

The first thing that hits her is the smell; stale and rancid. Like a mixture of sweat and spilled alcohol and milk that has gone bad. The air is thick with it, makes it almost hard to breathe, the further into the house she walks, the worse it gets and at some point, she has to cover her nose with her hand, she'd rather not breathe at all than breathe whatever toxic fumes are in the air.

Her father is lying on the couch, half of his body on the floor, one of his hands holding the remote and the other holding a bottle of beer. His eyes look cloudy, unfocused, Lauren doesn't even think he's actually watching the TV. His hair looks unkempt, wild almost; he's still wearing the shirt he was wearing on the twenty fourth so he evidently hasn't taken a shower in three days.

There are bottles of beer, whisky, vodka, tequila and other drinks Lauren can't even name around him. There's a plate of half eaten chicken on the table and popcorns and crisps strewn all over the floor. There's food on the dining table that looks like its days old, a glass full of soda with bugs floating on top of it.

For a second, Lauren can't breathe. She doesn't know if it's because she's depriving her lungs of air or if it's because her body is so overwhelmed that it's shutting down, but for a moment, she _cannot_ breathe. Her heart feels tired and her eyes sting and burn.

"Lauren," her father's voice floats lazily to her. It's grave and slurred, like he hasn't used it for days. "You're back." He says with a dopey smile.

She's going to be sick.

.

.

First thing she does is go to the kitchen. There are plates in the sink and food peels everywhere. She picks black garbage back and starts throwing everything inside it. Nothing is salvageable and even if it was, she wouldn't care. She just wants all this filth gone. It takes four garbage bags to get rid of all the food and all of her father's used bottles. When she's satisfied that it's all been thrown away, she does the dishes, cleans the fridge then does the laundry. She throws away the bed sheets on her parents' bed because they have a weird brown stain on them that she doesn't feel like questioning the origins of.

By the time she's done, it's almost ten and her body is so tired she feels like it'll shut down on her at any given moment.

"Are you hungry?" She asks her father, not looking him in the eyes. She can't handle looking at his blank stare. It's taking all of her not to just break down right now.

"I could go for a drink." He slurs, she feels bile rise up her throat.

"I meant, are you hungry for _food."_

"No. No I'm fine."

She doesn't say anything else to him, just stomps to her bedroom. She hasn't even sat down when it occurs to her that there's something she has forgotten, so she walks back down to the kitchen and picks another garbage bag. She goes through every closet, every shelf, any hiding place she can think of, and pulls out her father's beer bottles. She fills one and a half garbage bags and carries them all the way to the back yard.

She opens each bottle using her teeth or her hands and pours the contents into the ground. It takes her about an hour to finish, and by the time she's done, she feels numb. Detached. _Exhausted._ One of her thumbs is bleeding; she doesn't even recall cutting it. God, she's so damn _tired._

She falls face first on her bed when she finally gets to her room. She should probably take a shower. Her clothes smell like an odd mixture of alcohol and bleach and her skin feels filthy. But just the thought of getting out of her bed makes her feel like crying. Her body's done for today.

It has taken all it can take. It's done.

.

.

Lauren doesn't know how long she's asleep, but the first thing her eyes register when she opens them is big, red numbers blinking at her; _10:37._

The next thing she registers is that there's someone yelling and banging at her door. And if she didn't know it's her father, and if she hadn't been expecting this, she would be startled. But as things stand, she does know that it's her father and she has been expecting this, so she just sits up on her bed and schools her features into something hard and infallible.

She hopes she looks as convincing as she intends to. She hopes her nerves don't show.

"Open this door or I'll break it down!" He yells. She sits still, breath held in, her hands holding so tight onto her sheets that it's painful. " _Lauren!"_ It's quiet for a moment after that, and she allows herself a sliver of stupid hope. She allows herself to think that he's gone. But then the door is kicked with such force that it almost cracks in two when it hits the wall. He stands at the entrance, looking mad and not at all like himself. She clutches tighter onto the sheets. "Where. Are. They?" He practically spits out.

She doesn't dare blink. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't lie to me you little brat." His face is pale, his brow rigid, his mouth set in a straight line and his eyes red, either from anger or from alcohol, Lauren can't tell. "Just tell me where they are."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Fear bleeds into her voice, she's almost stuttering now. She moves back on the bed, hoping to increase the distance between them. "I don't-"

"Don't lie to me!" He yells and kicks the door again.

She jumps back. Frightened now. He's never been like this. He's usually loud and careless and his speech slurs when he's had as much as three sips of Guinness, but he has never been violent towards her. She doesn't know how to deal with him when he's like this. "I don't know what you're talking about, I really don't." Her voice sounds like it's drowning in tears and there's something lodged on her throat. "I really don't." She whispers.

"My drinks. I had- I had a stock of drinks yesterday. I know I did. And now they're gone and you were the last one in the kitchen. So I ask you again, where, are they?"

"Daddy I don't-"

She's not expecting it, and perhaps that's why for a moment after he's slapped her, she just stares at him, her hand on her cheek. Then he slaps her again and she's expecting it even less that it sends her across the room and she hits her forehead.

"Where are they Lauren?" He sounds tired. His face is red and he's panting. She's not very sure she knows who he is right now.

"I don't-"

" _Fuck_." He kicks the door one last time and stomps away.

.

.

For a moment, she just sits there. Her nose is bleeding and her arm feels like it's broken and there's a throbbing pain on her shoulder that feels like a balloon of pain, just waiting for the right time to pop. But for some reason, she can't really _feel_ the pain. She knows it's there, she can feel its ghost presence like a shadow that won't leave, but she's sort of numb to it.

It's probably due to shock, she thinks. Her mind hasn't yet caught up to what her body is feeling. Her eyes are heavy and they keep drooping. She once read somewhere that going to sleep while in shock isn't the best of ideas. She lifts her hand to rub at her eyes, wade away some of the fatigue, keep herself awake for just a little bit longer. Something wet smears on her face, she frowns and looks at her hand, her wrist is bleeding. She hadn't even noticed.

She should get up and get cleaned. Maybe take a bath, wash some of the blood away, cover the parts that need covering before they get infected. But just the thought of moving even and inch makes her eyes sting and her head roll. She doesn't think she's ever been so tired in all her life. And it's not even a _physical_ kind of tired; it's something else, something more bone deep, something she doesn't know if a few hours of sleep will be able to fix.

"Fuck." She mumbles when she tries to move, her brain has finally registered that her body is in pain. The throbbing in her arm now feels like a heartbeat and the world won't stop spinning no matter how much she wishes for it to. "Fuck." She says again and holds herself up on the wall. She almost falls, three times, on her way to the bathroom, but she finally gets there.

She stands in front of the mirror, holding herself up with both palms on the sink counter, and looks at her face with an air of detached curiosity, like it's not really hers. Like she's looking in on some else's private moment. Half her face is bloody and she has streaks of blood under her eye like she's been to war. Her eyes are bloodshot and small, her forehead is bruised and her clothes are covered in blood and something else she has no energy to decipher right now. She turns to her side and lowers her shirt, her shoulder is an angry kind of red, something's probably broken in there.

She looks a mess. Sadness and hurt don't suit her. Not like they do other people. Not like they did Valerie. The thought makes her chest feel tight and guilt bubbles up her throat like bile. She lets go of her shirt and slowly drags herself to her room, she picks an over sized hoody, one that Lucy gave her and carelessly throws it on.

She can't stay here tonight.

She can't.

.

.

.

She makes it all the way to Bo's bedroom without falling or running into anyone, small miracles.

 _'One step at a time'_ she tells herself all the way there and when she finally sees the door to Bo's bedroom, she almost cries. She has been in this room as many times in the past seven years as she's been in her own. Sometimes even when Bo's not there, when she's out having a good time with her other friends or having company dinner with her parents, Lauren just comes here and climbs into Bo's bed and sleeps. Bo's bed is big and warm and it smells like Bo. But most of all, whenever she sleeps in Bo's bed, she knows she'll wake up in the morning to Bo's arms around her, or Bo's head on her chest, and that's probably better than anything else in the world.

She doesn't knock, she never does, not even after that night when she barged in here to find Bo and that German exchange student whose name Lauren can't ever recall, making out on the bed. It had been awkward, looking at Bo's pink cheeks and swollen lips and knowing that they were like that because someone had kissed her. But within days, they were laughing about it. And Bo had promised to put a sock on the door if she ever has 'visitors' again.

There's no sock today. So Lauren just walks in and considers heading straight for the bed. Her bones feel like they've been dosed in lead and she's almost certain her arm is gradually falling off. She just wants to sleep.

"Lo." Bo's voice is high, excited, she's looking at something on her phone and the phone light is hitting her face in a way that makes her look entirely too bright. Lauren can't bear to look at her; she tucks her hands further into her pocket and looks at the floor. "I was just about to call you. I..." She finally looks up; Lauren can hear her frown even though she can't see it. "Lauren? What's wrong?"

Lauren fists her hands in her pockets. Her wrist is still bleeding. It's probably staining her hoody. She should have wrapped it before she came here. "Can I sleep here tonight?" She hopes her voice comes off as steady as she wants it to. She's already been weak enough tonight, she doesn't need to be any weaker.

"Lauren-" Bo's voice sounds closer, Lauren can smell her perfume too. Bo started using some of her mom's ridiculously expensive perfumes this year. These days she smells like someone who's about seven years older than she is. Lauren is yet to decide whether or not she likes it. "Lauren, please look at me."

"I just want to sleep, Bo. Can we please just sleep?" Her voice sounds like it's drowning in tears and her eyes sting. She's just so fucking tired. And her head's so full and her body's in too much pain for her to even _try_ to make sense of anything right now. If she could just sleep and deal with all this tomorrow. " _Please."_

Bo doesn't say anything. But she does move closer and places her index finger on Lauren's chin and lift her face up. Lauren would move her face away if she wasn't fifty percent sure that any sudden head movement would cause some sort of organ dislocation.

Bo's eyes widen when she looks at her face and Lauren wants to look away. She sometimes looks at herself in the mirror, when she's done helping her mom clean the house, or when she's just bored, she stands in front of the mirror and picks herself apart. Other girls have grown, especially Bo. Bo has boobs almost as big as Stacey's now and she knows how to use mascara to make her eyes look round and big and beautiful. Boys look at her different and she speaks different around them. The only person in their age group who hasn't grown any different is Lauren. Her chest is still flat and no matter how hard she tries, her eyes never look quite as big as Bo's. There's nothing special about her, and she doesn't like people staring into her face, she doesn't want them knowing how plain she is. "Fuck." Bo holds Lauren's chin tighter, "who did this to you?"

Bo's angry. Her first reaction whenever anything happens to Lauren is always to get angry then defensive. And Lauren loves that about her. But she can't deal with Bo's anger right now, not when every part of her body feels like it's soaked in pain. She's so fucking e _xhausted._ "I just want to sleep." She says slowly, the words feel sharp, like needles on her tongue, she wonders if her tongues bleeding too. She wonders if there's part of her that's _not_ bleeding.

"Shit." Bo mumbles. "Shit. Fuck. I- I'm gonna go get something to clean you up with, okay?"

"Can I take a shower instead?" She asks. She doesn't want Bo seeing the wounds on her body. She's going to freak out even more then she's probably going to tell her parents and it's going to get back to Lauren's parents, specifically her mom, and Lauren cannot handle that right now. "I'd like to take a shower."

"Are you sure?" Bo asks with narrowed eyes.

Lauren nods. "Yeah. I am."

"Lauren..."

"I'll be quick. Promise."

Bo nods. She doesn't look like she's okay with any part of this plan, but she nods anyway. Lauren gives her a smile in return; she hopes it looks more real than it feels.

.

.

.

She trudges all the way to the bathroom. The towel Bo gave her to use held carelessly around her body. "One step at a time." She mumbles all the way there. She stands in front of the bathtub for longer than she cares to keep tabs on. She might drown inside the tub. With how she's feeling, it's a very real possibility. But she can't bear to stand under the shower right now. Her shoulder hurts, her wrist hurts, her head hurts, things are still spinny and fuzzy. The probability of her falling and hitting her head on the tiles in the shower is almost one. It should make her skin crawl; the fact that she thinks it wouldn't be such a bad thing if she died in this bathroom tonight. But it doesn't. It makes her feel weirdly excited. To think that it could all be over, and she wouldn't have to do anything but sit in a tub or stand under a shower for it all to just be done.

In the end, she climbs into the bathtub and makes sure to keep her eyes open. It wouldn't be fair to Bo if she died in here. She won't do that to her. She looks at her thumb to avoid slipping into slumber, it looks horrible. Like someone was mutilating it or something. Looking at her thumb makes her think of how she got her wound, makes her think of breaking her father's bottles, makes her think of his eyes, blank and scary, looking at her with such intense anger that her skin burnt with it.

Her thumb comes between her teeth so fast she's not even sure if she thought the action through before she did it. She bites down on it so hard that it bleeds. The taste of warm copper spreads through her tongue but it's not enough. The pain isn't enough. She can still feel the ghost of her father's eyes on her skin, how hard his slap felt on her face. She can see his blank eyes behind her eyelids whenever she blinks.

She looks all around the bathroom. Her eyes frantic and a desperation she doesn't understand bubbling right underneath her skin.

She spots it, right among the toothbrushes. It's silver and sharp and perfect. She climbs out of the tub without caring that she's leaving a trail of water behind her. She grabs it, spilling the toothbrushes noisily into the sink. She doesn't give herself even a moment before she's slicing hard and deep into her wrist, making the cut that's already there even deeper. It's painful as hell. She feels it in her head right to her sore feet. It's _heaven._

It's almost like a glass of cold water on a hot summer day. Going down her throat and cooling her as it goes. It's instant relief. Like all the sadness and hurt and confusion drip down with the blood. It's painful too. So painful she couldn't think of her father if she tried. Her mind won't let her.

She loves the feeling. She loves it _so much._

.

.

.

The bathroom is a bitch to clean. Wet blood smells disgusting and she can't bear the sight or smell of it. "What if Bo had walked in?" She thinks. "What would I have done then?"

She hadn't even locked the door and she'd been noisy and untidy about it. There's blood almost all over now, tissue isn't _that_ great at cleaning blood. And now almost the whole roll is stained with blood because she touched it while she was still bleeding.

Worst of all, she can't even remember what that feeling of relief felt like. It was so _fleeting._ Like one moment it's there, and the next it's a distant memory that she can't grasp no matter how hard she tries. She stares hard at the pin when she's done cleaning. It still has traces of her blood on it. It would be so easy, slicing it through her wrist again. The previous cut is still there, deep and throbbing, it wouldn't' take much.

But no. Once is enough. The pain is still there, not as intense as it was before, but intense enough that all she can do is concentrate on it. "This is good." She tells herself, "it'll have to do."

.

.

.

Bo's waiting for her on the bed when she comes back from the bathroom. She has her hands laced together on her lap and she's wearing an over sized tee shirt and long socks that Lauren knows for a fact won't be on her feet come morning. She's so pretty. Probably the prettiest girl Lauren's ever seen. The thought makes her mouth feel odd; she squeezes the cut on her wrist, "hey." She says softly.

Bo looks up and tries for a smile, but she's clearly been crying. "Hey." She says back. "I uh-I got you some pills."

"Thanks." Lauren moves to the bed and takes the pills and glass of water from the bedside table. "I feel a lot better now."

"Lauren-" Bo wants to talk about it. She wants to find out what happened and discuss how Lauren's feeling but. Lauren can't. Not right now. Everything's all jumbled up in her head and the pain in her wrist is confusing her and the pills are already making her head heavy and fuzzy.

"Let's just sleep, Bo. Okay?"

"Okay."

.

.

.

Lauren sleeps all through the night. She'd thought she wouldn't. Imagined herself waking up in the middle of the night, sweaty and her mind riddled with images of blank eyes and raised hands, but evidently, she'd been wrong. The first time she opens her eyes, it's eight in the morning and the sun's already risen.

She groans when she shifts, her body protesting the movement. Everything still hurts; actually, everything hurts about fifty times more than it did last night, especially her wrist. She raises her hand to look at it, but then her eyes land on Bo, and she startles, almost knocking her head on the headboard. "Can we talk about it now?" Bo asks. She looks like she didn't sleep much last night. Her eyes are red and her face is swollen, she's cradling a mug of steaming hot coffee in her hands.

Lauren arches a brow, "can I have that?"

Bo hands it to her without question. "We really need to talk about this."

Lauren cringes. She's never understood why Bo insists on taking such bitter coffee, "we really don't."

"Lauren, someone _hurt_ you." She sounds like the words hurt her to say.

"I'm fine now, okay. It looks worse than it feels, really."

"You're wrist looks fucking _infected_." Lauren feels like she's been slapped. She bites her lip. Bo sighs. "I don't mean to be pushy. I'm sorry. I just – I think we should talk about this. Figure out how to deal with it."

Lauren recalls the relief she felt when she cut her wrist last night. Remembers some of the overwhelming hurt trickling away with the blood. She lets her lips spread into a smile she doesn't actually feel, "I already dealt with it. Come on, I want to do something fun today, please." She pouts. Bo is defenseless to her pouts.

"Lauren..."

"Please. I need some fun in my life." It's probably the most honest thing she's said this entire conversation.

Bo sighs. She clearly wants to talk about it, but they wouldn't be friends if they didn't know when to let things be. Lauren knows Bo. She knows that Bo _knows_ how to nag. And she knows that they're not done with this talk, not if Bo has anything to say about it. But she also knows that Bo knows her enough to tell that she needs to _not_ talk about this right now. "Okay. Where do you want to go?"

Lauren beams. This time, her smile feels real.

.

.

.

Two days pass before Lauren decides to go back home. Bo lends her some clothes, baggy ones that don't touch Lauren's bruises. She walks back home at around seven at night, it's snowing outside and her hands feel frozen in her coat pockets. Her father's seated in front of the TV, watching the news. He startles when he sees her, eyes going wide, like he hadn't been expecting her back. 'I live here,' she wants to tell him; instead, she keeps her mouth pursed and hangs her coat.

"Hi." His timid voice breaks the silence. He looks more sober than she has seen him look in a long while. Looks like he's taken a shower too. The place doesn't stink and there's no rotting food on the dining table.

She removes her beanie. "Hey." She has no pockets to tuck her hands in now; she pulls the edges of her sweater all the way down to cover her wrists.

He smiles at her awkwardly, "welcome home." She nods. She doesn't know what else to do. She doesn't know how to act around him anymore. "I uh- I made apple pie. Been making one every day. Just in case you came home. It's a- it's a sort of welcome home gift."

 _Sorry I beat you half to death. Here, have some pie._ She doesn't know why the thought's so amusing to her. "Thanks."

He nods and switches off the TV then turns to her with wet eyes, "I'm sorry." He says quietly, it comes out choked, like he's about to bawl, Lauren can't look at him, "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I don't know what came over me but- it won't happen again. I haven't touched the bottle in three days and I don't plan on touching it again." He sounds so earnest. And Lauren's sure he believes what he's saying. She sure he thinks what he's saying is the absolute truth.

But she knows better. She knows he'll try and stop drinking; he'll be extra nice to compensate for what he's done. But after a while, he'll miss the taste of alcohol. After a while, he'll remember that night differently. He'll remember hitting Lauren _because_ she threw his drinks away. He'll turn it into her fault. Then alcohol won't be vile anymore, it won't be the cause of his violence, and he'll drink again. He always does.

"Just-" his voice cuts through her thoughts, she blinks twice, trying to bring herself back to the present, her heads always so damn full these days. "Just please don't tell your mother. She'd leave me. I'm trying to change honey and, she wouldn't understand. It was a onetime thing but she wouldn't understand that. Our family would be ruined. Please. Don't tell her."

She doesn't say anything; she just stands there, silent and numb. She grinds her teeth 'til it feels like she's ground them right down to the nerves. _Our family would be ruined_ , he said. That's all he cares about. She wonders if he knows that _she's_ ruined. That he broke something inside her so thoroughly that she feels as if she will never be all right. That sometimes she feels so angry that her throat hurts with it and her lungs burn with it.

"Lauren?"

Her eyes snap to him. Her mouth sets in a stubborn line. "I won't tell her." She says because that's what he wants to hear. She says because no matter how much he says it was a onetime mistake, something inside her has now wired itself to be careful around him. Say what he wants, do what he wants and stay out of his way. _Self-preservation_. "I won't tell her," she repeats, "I promise."

* * *

Dyson's having a pre New Year's party and Bo insists that they should go together and since Lauren doesn't know how to say no to Bo, she ends up agreeing. They get ready at Lauren's since Bo's father is working late in his home office and he doesn't want to be disturbed.

Lauren's mom has a rare day off and she cooks up a feast for them and she even invites Nicklaus the Hippy who's shyer than Lauren pegged him to be. He doesn't talk much all through dinner and when Lauren's mom gives him some left overs to take home because he apparently 'needs some meat on his bones', he thanks her about a million times.

Lauren takes pictures with Salmon and Bo and her mom and even a few with her dad. And if she tries hard enough, she can almost convince herself she has a normal life.

Dyson's party is just a typical Edwardsville teenager's party. There's booze that he probably bought himself since according to Bo, he has a fake ID that says he's eighteen. There's loud music and people kissing in the front porch and a group of people sharing a blunt of weed somewhere at a corner. Stacey waves at Lauren from that group, she waves back and smiles a little because it's the polite thing to do. Bo's hand is warm and a little sweaty in hers as she leads them to where undoubtedly, there's beer.

"Ladies." Dyson yells when he sees them. He looks halfway towards drunk, shirtless because he's a showoff, and he has a straw perched at the back of his left ear. Lauren has never really understood what Bo sees in him. "Thought you guys weren't going to show up."

"Told you we would." Bo says, letting go of Lauren's hand and pulling out a stool for her before taking one for herself. She's been extra careful with Lauren since the _incident_. They're yet to talk about it, but Lauren isn't under the impression that they won't. She knows Bo too well to think that.

"Well, what's your poison?"

"Whatever you can mix up for me, preferably something with vodka and..." she turns to Lauren, "Lo, what'd you want?"

"Uh...water?"

Dyson frowns like he's disgusted, "people don't drink water at The Thorn's parties. It reflects badly on my image."

"She's going to drink whatever the fuck she wants to drink and _The Thorn_ and his image are going to have to deal with it. Okay?" Bo's voice brooks no room for argument.

Dyson shrugs. Lauren sighs. "Beer. I'll have a beer."

"That's more like it." Dyson hoots and starts mixing up drinks.

.

.

.

Lauren's brain feels fuzzy around the edges, like it's been stacked full of cotton or clouds or something equally as soft. She's not exactly drunk, but she's halfway there and right now that's more than good enough. Bo has somehow found herself at the other side of the house. She's laughing at something Dyson's saying, one of her hand's on his chest and his hand's on her waist. Lauren wonders why he won't put on a damn shirt.

She takes a sip of her beer. It's warm now, tastes disgusting as hell. Bo throws her head back, laughing at something Dyson just said, his hand goes a little higher on Bo's waist, Lauren takes another sip of her disgusting beer and then makes herself pry her eyes from the two of them.

There's a group of people in the middle of the room playing some sort of game that sounds loud and exciting. For some reason, it involves a shocking lack of clothes. Lauren shrugs and starts making her way towards them, anything's better than sitting here, looking at Bo and Dyson act like fools.

"Shit. Sorry." She says when she bumps into someone. She might be more than just halfway towards drunk. "Sorry." She repeats, just in case the person didn't hear her the first time. Her victim, whoever it is, laughs and reaches for her wrist, apparently to steady her or something. She snatches her hand away so fast; she almost hits someone with her beer bottle. "Don't." She snaps.

Her wounds have healed quite nicely. If she moves too fast in the wrong direction, her shoulder still feels like it's going to fall off. But most of the time she's extra careful with it so it's no trouble. Actually, the only thing that _hasn't_ healed is her wrist and that's because she picks at it all the time. Whenever it looks like it's healing, she picks at it until it's bleeding again. It's painful when she picks at it and the pain goes all the way to her head until she can't think anymore. She likes that. Sometimes _not_ thinking is the only way for her to keep her sanity intact.

"Sorry." He raises his hands in mock surrender.

Lauren frowns, "Mark?"

"Hi." He says timidly.

She slaps his chest playfully. "I saw you hours ago. Why didn't you come say hi?"

"You're elusive." He tries with that charmingly confused look that only he can pull off.

Lauren rolls her eyes and grabs his hand. "Come on. I want to see what's going over there." She leads him towards the loud group and in the middle of all the voices are Tamsin and Stacey. Stacey with her shirt off and Tamsin with her mouth on Stacey's stomach, taking a shot off of her.

Lauren feels weird, looking at them. Like there's something settling at the pit of her stomach and a sort of buzzing electricity right at the tip of her fingers. She feels hot for no reason at all. Then she feels guilt prick her skin like hot needles. It's the same feeling she had that day when she looked at Valerie and thought she was the prettiest sad person ever. It's the same feeling she gets whenever she looks at Bo too long and thinks of her too much.

She doesn't like it.

She tags at Mark's hand. He's looking at Tamsin and Stacey with a sort of dopey look in his eyes. Like he might start drooling any time now. She wonders if she looked like that too while she was looking at them, and if someone saw her, saw how _wrong_ she is. Panic surges up her body like a bad rash. She tags harder at Mark's hand. He looks at her with wide blown eyes, "you wanna get out of here?" She shouts into his ear.

He nods.

She leads him towards the exit, handing her beer to someone, she doesn't care enough to take note of who she hands it to. She's done with it anyway.

She only lets go of Mark's hand when they're outside and the cold's seeping into her bones. She sinks her hands into her coat pockets and berates herself for not carrying a beanie. It's cold as fuck. She'll probably end up getting pneumonia, or hypothermia, or something equally as dreadful and life threatening and she'll have no one to blame but herself.

"Cold?" Mark asks, already removing his jacket and draping it over her.

She smiles gratefully at him. For a moment, she considers fluttering her eyelashes. Bo does that a lot around Dyson, it makes her look delicate, boys seem to like delicate girls. But then she thinks she'll end up looking stupid, so she kicks at the ground instead.

"That party's something else, huh?"

"Did you like it?" She blurts out, completely without thinking. She narrows her eyes at herself and rewords her question. "What Tamsin and Stacey were doing, did you like it?"

He shrugs. It looks awkward because his hands are in his jeans pockets and he's all gangly limbed, "yeah. I guess. I mean, it's always hot when chicks kiss, you know?"

Her eyes widen, sudden panic seizes her insides so hard she can't breathe for a second. "No. I don't know. How would I? I've never kissed a girl."

"I know. I mean," he shakes his head. "I didn't mean to imply anything. I know you're not like that. I just- I meant it's like general knowledge."

 _I know you're not like that._

Irritation crawls over her skin. She stops walking abruptly and waits 'til he stops walking too and turns to look at her. She sets her mouth in a fine line and fists her palms in her pockets. A stubborn kind of determination makes home in her being, she looks straight into his eyes. "Do you want to make out?"

His eyes widen a little, completely disbelieving. "What?"

"I mean, unless you have mono or something."

"No." He shakes his head, he looks a little frustrated with himself, "I mean no, I don't have mono, not no, I don't want to make out with you." A beat, then, "do you really want to make out?"

"Yeah." She shrugs, trying to look careless.

"Well." He scratches the back of his neck. "Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I've wanted to for some time."

"Really?"

"Of course. You're like the nicest hot chick in Edwardsville. Probably in the world too. Plus your smart. I like that in a girl."

Heat rises up her cheek. She unballs her fists. It doesn't seem like such a vile thing anymore, wanting to kiss this boy. He's smart and he's nice and his complements are so endearingly sincere. Lauren could do a lot worse, she thinks.

"Okay." She heaves in a breath and moves closer to him. It's odd, even thinking of kissing someone who's not Bo or family. But it was bound to happen someday, might as well be with Mark. "Okay." She says again and connects their lips.

Bo usually tastes like whatever lip gloss she fancies that week. Lauren likes kissing Bo on the mouth, likes guessing what she'll taste like with every kiss. Likes that Bo's lips are always soft and warm and that Bo always smells like coconuts.

Mark's lips are cold, chapped, his movements are unsure and he smells like sweat and boy and probably cologne or aftershave or something. Lauren feels vaguely sick.

He pulls back and smiles, he looks pleased, happy. She pulls him back in and kisses him again, harder this time.

.

.

.

They leave the party at around one. Bo's drunk. She keeps singing songs that don't really make sense and Lauren has to support all of her body weight. They end up falling at least three times and they always get up, laughing although they don't really have a reason to.

They try to be quiet when they get to Lauren's, but the more they try, the louder they are. Lauren's mother texts her for them to keep quiet and they end up laughing at the text for five minutes.

"Tonight was amazing." Bo whispers into the skin on Lauren's neck. She's a warm solid weight against Lauren's back and her breath's minty from the toothpaste they used to brush their teeth. Lauren draws random circles at the back of Bo's palm. "Did you have fun?"

"Yeah." She says because that's the answer Bo's expecting.

It's quiet for a moment then, "I think Dyson's finally going to ask me out. Like, for real."

Hurt settles in Lauren's stomach like an ache. She stops drawing random circles on Bo's skin. "I kissed a boy today." Her voice sounds like she's trying to prove a point.

 _I kissed a boy. I'm normal. Nothing else matters. I kissed a boy._

"Who?"

"Mark."

"Mark's nice." Bo says approvingly, "I like him for you."

"Dyson's a jerk."

"He's _layered."_

"If by layered you mean jerk, then yeah, he is."

"Shut up." Bo pinches her stomach and Lauren erupts into a fit of giggles then kicks Bo's foot. They end up play fighting for almost a whole hour before finally going to sleep.

.

.

.

Lauren's fifteen. Sometimes she forgets. Sometimes it feels like she's been alive longer than just fifteen years. Sometimes it feels like she's been alive for too long.

But it doesn't matter what she feels, because she _is_ fifteen. And fifteen year olds are by nature naïve, whether they want to admit it or not.

It's the third of January and Lauren's alone at home. Her mom's at work and her dad left earlier, apparently he went to ask around for a job, he hasn't come back home yet. Lauren's seated outside on her porch, texting Mark. They're not talking about anything important, but Lauren sometimes sees Bo texting Dyson random things, so she assumes people who're dating just talk about mundane things from time to time.

Dating. She's dating Mark. It seems so odd to think about. It shouldn't be, not anymore. She has kissed him about five times since that first time. He still smells like boy and cologne and she still feels a little sick after kissing him, but she supposes that'll fade away with time. She's been patiently waiting for those butterflies Stacey and Valerie used to claim people get when they kiss boys, so far they haven't made an appearance. But Lauren's sure they will at some point. She and Mark just have to get a little bit more used to each other.

She's telling Mark about Salmon's new found obsession with pillows, when she feels a shadow looming over her. She looks up. It's Nicklaus the Hippy, holding a bowl in his hands.

"Hey." It comes out more like a question than she intended for it to.

"Hi." His voice is deceptively deep. He adjusts his glasses, "I uh- I brought back your mom's dish."

"Oh." Lauren smiles politely and takes the dish from his outstretched hand, "thanks." She says because she doesn't know what else to say.

He nods and tucks his hands in his pockets. "Tell your mom I said thanks again. And that her food was very delicious."

Growing up, Lauren used to think that Nicklaus was snobby and maybe a little bit of a jerk. One of those Hippies who think they're way too enlightened for this world. But he's really not. He's nice and awkward and probably the shyest adult Lauren has ever met. She gives him a polite, slightly amused smile. She's about to say something to him, but her phone rings, cutting her off.

At first, she thinks its Mark. Thinks he got tired of waiting for her to text back and decided to call. But when she checks her caller ID, it's her mom. Her heart starts beating irregularly for no reason at all. "Hello."

" _Lauren, honey, I'm so glad you picked up. I need a favour."_

Lauren frowns, she looks at Nicklaus, walking towards his house, she bites her lip for a moment, then, "what is it?" She asks skeptically. Her mom's never asked to _ask_ a favour of her. Usually, she just asks Lauren to do something for her and if Lauren refuses to, she bribes her.

" _I need you to go pick your father up from Big Ben's."_

There it is. Lauren _knew_ she wasn't going to like the direction this conversation is taking. She holds the bowl in her hand so tightly she can see her knuckles turn white. "Mom," she feels more like a fifteen year old right now than she has in a year, naïve and pathetic for even a second, believing that her father was actually going to change this time. She feels like such a _child._

" _Please honey."_ Her mom's voice sounds vaguely pleading and a lot rushed, like she has somewhere else to be and she just wants this conversation done. " _You know I wouldn't be asking you this if I had any other option. We're swamped at the club today and Vivian won't spare me for even a second."_

"I'm fifteen." Lauren feels like she's going to cry. She bites her lower lip hard, holds her phone tightly in the hand that's not clutching the dish, "how I'm even supposed to get to Big Ben's _and_ get both dad and I back home?"

" _I don't know honey. Just find a way. Take a cab, I'll give you back the money you spend."_

She's _lying_. Lauren knows for a fact that she's lying. Lauren has lent her mom money about three times and she has never been paid back. Not that she expects to be. She'd just appreciate not being lied to.

" _I have to go baby. But I'm sending you Junior's number. Just call him when you get to Big Ben's, okay? He knows where your father is."_

The call is disconnected before Lauren has a chance to say anything back. "Fuck." She yells and throws the dish against the wall. Nicklaus, who'd been doing something on his lawn, watching her in a way that Lauren thinks _he_ thought was inconspicuous but in reality was obvious as hell, looks at her with concerned eyes.

"Everything okay?" He yells.

Lauren runs her fingers through her hair and looks at her mom's broken dish. Her mom's going to be angry, it was one of her favourites. _'Everything's fine.'_ She wants to yell. But the words get stuck in her mouth, "do you have a car?" She asks instead.

He walks back to her porch, his glasses have slid back down to the bridge of his nose. "Yes. Why?"

"I uh- I need you to drive me somewhere."

.

.

.

Nicklaus spends half the ride telling Lauren about his sister. He says something about her being difficult these days and their parents wanting to send her to boarding school. He might ask something about Lauren's thoughts on boarding schools and their effects on a teenage girls' personality. Lauren's not sure. She's not really listening to what he's saying. She can hear his voice speaking, but her mind's not present. His voice sounds like background chatter, kind of like a dying radio.

She nods at him. She doesn't know why. It's just the only thing she thinks to do.

He doesn't say anything else after that.

She makes sweater paws with her hoody and looks out the window, pinching her yet to heal wrist almost absent mindedly. She doesn't think she has ever felt so _stupid_ in all her life. She knew not to trust him. She knew that he says lies that even he believes to be the truth. She knew, she _knew_ yet she still childishly trusted him like a fucking idiot.

"Hey. Hey. You okay?" Nicklaus's concerned voice breaks Lauren from her thoughts.

She blinks at him, a tear falls, she hadn't even noticed that she'd started crying. "I'm fine." She sniffs and wipes her tears away with the back of her hand, "you know where Big Ben's is, right?"

"Yeah." He says after a beat.

She nods and looks back out the window, then resumes pinching her wrist, harder than before. It's painful as hell and she can actually feel herself start to bleed.

Good, she thinks. _Good._

.

.

.

"You want me to come with you?" Nicklaus asks as he switches the car engine off.

Lauren looks up from the phone. She just texted Ben Junior and he said he's bringing her dad out in a bit. She shakes her head at Nicklaus, "no. I'll be fine."

She throws the hood of her hoodie on and steps out of the car. It's cold as all actual fucks tonight and if she'd been smart, she would have put on some damn mittens. But as things stand, she didn't put on her mittens and the probability of her fingers falling off is high. She rubs her hands together and looks around. Big Ben's is dead tonight. There's no one out here other than Lauren and a couple that seems like they can't decide whether or not they want to fight or to make out.

She contemplates reaching for her phone and texting Junior again.

But then the exit opens and Junior comes out, supporting Lauren's almost drunk father's dead weight. "Where's your cab?" He grunts out. Lauren points at Nicklaus's car. Nicklaus already has the back door open. Junior leads Lauren's father all the way to Nicklaus's car and makes sure he's settled in and that the door is closed.

He gives Lauren a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as he's walking back to the bar. Lauren wants to shrug his hand off. Wants to yell at him that she's _fine._ She doesn't need anyone's pity. But the words refuse to make their way out of her mouth and she climbs into Nicklaus's car and bangs the door closed.

Nicklaus gives her the same pitying look Junior gave her. She narrows her eyes at him. "He's not usually like this," she blurts out without even thinking. "I mean, yeah, he drinks, but he knows his limits. Things have just been hard at home and it's hard for him to deal." The lie flows so easily off her tongue. She doesn't even have to think it, words just come tumbling out.

Nicklaus doesn't seem like he believes her. But he doesn't say anything either. Lauren appreciates it.

* * *

It's June.

The sun's hotter than it's been in a while and Lauren wishes she could dim it down a little. She's lying on the grass in front of Bo's house, sunglasses on her eyes and eyelids shut. Bo's beside her, she smells like Armani and a little bit of sweat today. She keeps typing away at her phone. Lauren knows for a fact that she's talking to Dyson. Bo talks to Dyson a lot these days. Somewhere, beyond the sound of Bo's relentless typing, she can hear Salmon's happy barks. He's made a friend in Mrs. Devon's dog, Wendy. He's always taking every chance he can to play with her and lick her and sometimes just sniff her. Lauren thinks Salmon's a little in love with Wendy. Maybe they're going to give her puppies soon.

"Do you think Salmon and Wendy are getting it on?" She asks, turning to look at Bo. Bo's wearing a black crop top and red shorts today. Her legs have literally sprouted in the past months and her face is now all sharp angles and striking eyes. Lauren didn't think it was possible for Bo to ever be even more beautiful than she already was. But evidently, she'd been wrong.

Guilt festers under her skin like a wound. She looks away. She longs to pinch her wrist. But she's wearing a watch to cover her wound since it's summer and she can't get away with wearing long sleeved things all the time.

Bo hums like she's really thinking the question through. Then she shrugs and locks her phone and lies on her side, looking at Lauren, "I think Dyson and I are going to have sex soon."

Lauren's heart stops and from nowhere, a lump rises up her throat. "Why'd you say that?" She tries making her voice sound absent, careless, as nonchalant as it can possibly sound. Tries acting like her blood hasn't turned completely cold. Like her fingers aren't itching to remove the damn watch from her wrist and pinch it until she's bleeding and her head is empty.

"He's just been dropping hints lately. A _lot_ of them."

"That's...good, right?" Her voice cracks. She can hear it. She clears her throat. "That's what you've wanted practically since you were in diapers."

"I wasn't wearing diapers at eleven, you jerk." Bo punches her playfully. "But seriously. I just- I've been talking to Elaine and she says all that talk about your first time being special if it's with the one you love is bullshit. She says first times are always awkward and it's better if you practice first. Get it out of the way and you know, get used to it. So that when you do have it with a boy you like, it's all smooth sailing."

Lauren narrows her eyes and scrunches her nose, "that sounds really wrong. And a little bit gross if I'm being honest."

"Elaine is never wrong." Bo lies back down, her hands tucked behind her head to keep her hair from the grass. "I just have to decide who it is I'm going to practice on."

.

.

.

Lauren looks at the drink in her hands, feels the condensation from the bottle trickle down her fingers, to her wrist before dropping to the floor. She licks her lips and takes another swig of her beer, it tastes vile and a little bit bitter, and not for the first time, she wonders exactly what she's doing here.

Summer's almost over. She's going to be in tenth grade soon. She has a boyfriend who she has kissed multiple times and she even let him slip his hand under her shirt once. She's growing up. She hates it.

When she was younger, she used to think growing up meant making your own decisions and doing whatever the hell you want. Now she knows growing up means headaches and doing things you don't want to do just because 'people your age are doing it'. Sometimes she wishes she could stop time, even just for a second. Just stop time and ride her bike to the park with Bo. Eat candy and spill stupid secrets under her sheets in the dead of the night. She wants to eat ice cream on the pavement, watch their neighbours go about their lives, plot with Bo how best to make Lucy's life miserable, maybe run into the house and convince her mom to make them pink lemonade.

She just wants her life to be something else other than what it is at the moment. She wants her head to not be full and her chest to not feel like someone is gradually squeezing it in order to inflict maximum pain.

Mark whispers something into her ear. She turns to him and hums, wordlessly asking him to repeat whatever it is he said. He smiles and leans into her ear, "I said, what's on your mind?" He yells to be heard above the music.

Lauren wishes he wouldn't. Her head feels like it's throbbing from its very core and having someone shout in her ears isn't really doing much to help with that situation.

"Nothing." She says and shakes her head, letting her eyes wander around, looking for Bo. Bo's the reason Lauren's even at this damn party in the first place. She's seemed a little out of it tonight –Bo, but she wouldn't tell Lauren what's going on.

" _We should go out."_ Is all she'd said when Lauren tried to pry information out of her. " _In fact, you should invite Mark and I'll invite Dyson. Make a double date out if it."_

Lauren had half the mind to say no. But then she'd looked at the way Bo couldn't keep herself still for more than five seconds, something she only ever does when something's bothering her, and Lauren had nodded. The idea of a double date was about five different kinds of repulsive to her. But she couldn't let Bo go out alone, not in the state she was in. Bo tends to do things she'll regret when her mind's full, and Lauren just couldn't let that happen.

"Have you seen Bo?" She asks, leaning into Mark's space. She can smell his cologne mixed with sweat. Sometimes she wishes he wouldn't smell so much like a boy.

"I think I saw her and Dyson walk out a few minutes ago."

"I'm gonna go look for her. Keep an eye on my drink for me, okay?" She kisses his cheek before he has a chance to reply, and then she makes her way through the crowd of bodies towards the front door. Lauren doesn't even know whose party this is. Bo just said it's for a 'friend of a friend' and Lauren didn't bother to ask any more questions.

She pulls the sleeve of her shirt lower, making sure to cover her wrist. She doesn't want people looking at her funny. She takes a moment to catch her breath when she finally gets outside, breathing in the cool air, unclogging her lungs of the smell of sweat and alcohol that she'd inhaled in the house.

It takes about twenty minutes to find Bo. Lauren finds her in the car, at the back seat, feet propped up and music blaring. It's literally the last place she thought to look, she'd been just about to give up and go back in to Mark.

She raps at the window, Bo looks at her lazily, "there room in there for one more?" Lauren asks, making sure to keep her voice soft. Bo wordlessly opens the door for her and Lauren climbs inside. She turns the volume down almost completely and lets a little bit of quiet fill the car.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lauren asks after a considerable amount of time has passed. She doesn't even bother asking if something's wrong. She already knows the answer to that, now she just needs to know _what's_ wrong and how she can fix it.

Bo shrugs carelessly. "Not really." Her voice sounds rough around the edges, like she's been crying for a while.

"Okay." Lauren says carefully and pulls a coil of cherry licorice from her pocket. It's warm now, she's been meaning to eat it since earlier today, but she keeps forgetting. "Want some?" She asks, cutting a piece and offering it to Bo.

Bo snorts, just like Lauren knew she would, and takes the licorice. They chew in silence, Lauren props her feet on the seat too. She kicks Bo's foot lightly, Bo steals some more licorice from her, Lauren sticks her tongue out at Bo. For a moment, things are okay. They're easy, simple.

Then, "I feel like getting high," Bo looks at her, her eyes shining in the semi darkness, her normally pink lips red from the cherry licorice, "do you mind?"

"Where did you even get weed from?"

"Bought it." Bo says carelessly. "So," she lifts her butt up and pulls a small baggie from her back pockets, "can I?"

Lauren nods.

Bo's careful with the way she rolls the joint in a way she's not with a lot of things. She lights it up while it's between her lips, not even bothering to roll the window down before she lets out the first puff. Lauren wonders exactly how many times she's done this, it seems to come so naturally to her. "You want?" She offers graciously.

Lauren wants to say no. She's not really a pot kind of girl. But it would be weird just sitting there, watching while Bo smokes, so she takes the joint, pinching the thin paper between her fingers, her hands are shaking.

"You want me to show you how?" Bo's voice is gentle and warmer than it was before. It's softer around the edges now, like the weed's already doing away with her sadness.

Lauren nods.

"Okay just- pull it in, like you would a cigarette," Bo instructs. Lauren does as she's told, her hands feel clumsy, inexperienced, "then let it settle in your lungs for a bit, then let it out."

Lauren doesn't feel any different after she lets the puff out. But Bo's looking at her with bright eyes and a proud smile. So Lauren smiles back.

It's easier to smoke after that first drag, and they pass the joint silently between them. The car is filled with smoke and almost quiet music. Lauren feels like she's floating. Her thoughts are fleeting. She cannot hold on to one thought long enough to dissect it, everything just seems so slippery and passing. It's the best feeling in the world.

"My dad's sleeping with his secretary." Bo says evenly, like she's stating the weather or the day of the week. Her voice is tight, measured, "I walked in on them today in his study. My mom was in the kitchen. Literally three doors away from him."

Lauren blinks, she tries to find a proper response to what she just heard, but everything inside her head is hazy and she can't find the right words no matter how hard she tries. "That sucks." She ends up saying.

Bo huffs out a laugh, it sounds mirthless, empty. "Do you know the first thing he said when he saw me, _don't tell your mom._ Apparently he thinks _it'll kill her_. You'd think he'd think of that _before_ fucking someone else."

Lauren lets her hands pool on her laps, her sleeves have ridden up, she didn't put her watch on today, she can clearly see the cut on her wrist, and she can feel a ghost pain on her shoulder. She licks her lips, "my father hit me." Bo opens her mouth to say something but Lauren beats her to it. "He's the one who hit me that night. It was my fault though, I poured his drinks out. Pissed him off."

"Lauren-"

"It only happened once though. And he said he was sorry."

Bo looks at Lauren with something that looks too much like pity. Lauren looks away. She didn't tell Bo because she wants to be pitied, she told her because she didn't want her to feel alone. Because she wanted her to know that Lauren understands. Pity isn't something Lauren likes directed at her, it makes her feel weak.

Bo laces their hands together, her soft, warm hand curling around Lauren's, "your dad sucks." She says like it's some sort of secret.

Lauren feels a smile curve on her lips. "I know."

"And my dad sucks too."

"I know."

"We kinda got the short end of the stick when it comes to dads. Maybe we should sue someone."

Lauren snorts. "I hate you."

Bo laughs. She moves closer to Lauren, using her free hand to touch Lauren's cheek, "I'm going to kiss you now, okay?"

And the thing is, Lauren knows that Bo's words are innocent. They've been kissing each other for comfort since they were little. It's their thing. Other friends hug, they kiss. But, Lauren's brain doesn't know that. All Lauren knows is that Bo's lips are soft and warm and Bo's kisses light her skin on fire.

She knows she should stop Bo, she should say no to Bo's kisses. At least until she sorts herself out, until she learns how _not_ to turn innocent things into something they're not meant to be. But she's selfish. She's selfish because she can't say no to Bo's lips on her skin although she knows she should.

She really should.

Bo kisses the back of her eye lids, her nose, her cheeks, "better?" Her voice is warm, her tongue is red, she smells like weed and candy.

Lauren swallows. She wants to nod, say that yes, she's feeling better, but instead, she leans in and pecks Bo's lips. She tells herself it's the weed and the alcohol, tells herself she can't control her actions.

There's nothing wrong with her, she's just high. Everyone does weird things when they're high. It doesn't have to mean anything. She leans in and kisses Bo again, this time, it's more than a peck. Bo kisses her back, dragging their lips together, her palms now holding the sides of Lauren's face, keeping her steady.

Lauren doesn't know how Bo moves from where she was seated and onto Lauren's lap. Everything's moving so fast and before she can fully grasp one thing, something else happens. "Can I?" Her fingers are on Lauren's shorts. Her eyes are blown wide and dark, she's the most beautiful thing Lauren has ever seen in her life.

Lauren bites her lip and nods.

Everything feels panicked and rushed and almost a little desperate. Bo's fingers move fast, like warm oil, never stopping, not even when Lauren needs them to stop so she can grasp what's going on. It just feels like there's so much Bo all around her. Warm and solid and beautiful and it's like Lauren's brain can't process the overload, can't make sense of everything's that's going on.

Before she knows it, it's over and Bo's slipping off her lap, lips swollen and hair all over the place. She runs her fingers through her hair once and zips up her shorts. "I should go," she says, not looking Lauren in the eyes, "Dyson's probably looking for me."

Lauren's blood freezes, she can't breathe, but at the same time, it feels like her hearts beating too fast. There's just so much going on inside her and she feels like she's coming apart at the seams, "w- what?" Her words trip over themselves, her tongue feels heavy and her eyes burn.

Bo doesn't answer, just slips out of the car and walks away.

Lauren watches her go. The inside of the car suddenly feels cold. Her head is fuzzy, and not in the good way and there's something stuck in her throat that make breathing feel kinda hard. She can taste tears on her tongue, they taste like bile, kind of rancid really and more than just a little bit bitter.

She opens her side of the door, doesn't even bother stepping out of the car, just leans her head out and throws up almost everything inside of her.

 _ **End of part two.**_

* * *

 _ **Thank you so much for reading. For the people asking me to update other things, I will, once they're ready and I'm satisfied with what I've written. But you have to remember that I have priorities, I have school, and an original and a club doccubus fic that have priority right now. So please be patient. Thanks.**_


	3. Part 3 Wild

_**First of all, I'd like to say about a million Thank yous to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I read each and every one of them. Thank you for taking your time to tell me your thoughts. Especially the detailed ones, I love those. Second, I'd like to ask you to please,**_ _please,_ _ **be kind with this chapter. A lot of me bled into this one, and a lot of really brave people's generosity bled into it too. Like I said from the beginning, this fic took a village. I have no way to thank the**_ _Wonderful_ _ **people who answered my questions and told me their stories, except to write the best chapter I possibly could. So this is my thank you, I hope it's enough.**_

* * *

 _ **Trigger warnings for;**_ _Depression, Internalized homophobia, Homophobia, Physical abuse. E.D, S.I., Alcoholism, Really bad coping mechanisms, internalized self-hate, Dubious consent, Underlying themes of Transphobia, Domestic violence, Verbal abuse, Suicidal Thoughts &Tendencies._

* * *

 _ **Part three; Wild.**_

 _You make my heart shake, bend and break, but I can't turn away and it's driving me wild._

* * *

Lauren takes to standing in front of the mirror, sometimes after she has taken a shower, sometimes when she's washing her hands. She just stands there and stares at herself. Her eyes are dark, they've always been dark. Her granddaddy used to say they're almost black. _Silver eyes,_ he'd call them. Lauren used to think that's something pretty. Because silver is shinny and pretty and anything that looks like it surely must be pretty too. But through the years, she has come to learn that silver eyes mean 'blank eyes'. Other people's eyes seem to tell stories. Her mom's tell stories of frustration, of sadness hidden deep under thinly veiled anger. Bo's tell of beauty, youth, _life._ Lauren has never seen eyes more alive than Bo's. They shine so bright, big and delicate. They come alive when she laughs, crinkling at the corner and lighting up the whole place. Lauren wonders why her eyes look nothing like that. Why hers are blank and dead-like.

Maybe that's why Bo hadn't stayed –she thinks, narrowing her eyes at herself. Maybe Bo had finally seen just how pathetically plain she is. She bites her lip so hard she almost draws blood. Her mom always says she has beautiful hair, long and bouncy, spun like gold. _'You've never had a bad hair day in your life. Not even when you were small and insisted on sleeping on the cold floor.'_ Lauren runs her fingers through her hair, tries seeing it as beautiful, as something someone other than her mother can look at and think 'wow', as something that could make someone _stay._ But all she sees is hair, nothing special.

She sighs and balls her fists. Her face is pale and rigid, set in a straight line. She doesn't have Tamsin's cheekbones or Bo's softness. She touches her chin, her fingers feel hard and cold as iron. She turns her head and looks at her profile, it's just as plain as the rest of her, her eyes blur and she turns away from the mirror. There's nothing there worth seeing, no matter how hard she looks.

"Lauren." Her mom calls from downstairs. She has the night off today and has decided to make them dinner. Lauren wipes at her eyes furiously. "Lauren, honey, come down, dinner's ready."

"Coming." She yells, voice hoarse although she hasn't even been crying that long. She clears her throat, "just a minute."

She splashes a bit of water on her face. Her mom's already dealing with a lot at the moment; she doesn't need Lauren's trouble on top of everything else. Lucy's apparently not feeling so well and although she pretends to be okay, Lauren knows her mom's worried. Mr. Lewis is also yet to find a job and he's been taking all his frustrations out on Mrs. Lewis. Lauren pretends she doesn't hear them yell at each other at three in the morning. Pretends she doesn't see the bags under her mom's eyes and how pasty her skin has become.

"You're here, finally, we can eat." Mrs. Lewis says jovially when Lauren steps into the room. Lauren finds a smile from somewhere within herself and takes a seat. Her dad's already halfway done with a bottle of beer and there's another unopened one in front of him. Lauren pinches her wrist and pinches it until the pain is all she can think of. "You okay?" Her mom asks, giving her a concerned look and laying her hand on her shoulder.

Lauren lets go of her wrist as if burnt, she balls her fist, the edges of her shirt held between her fingers. "I'm fine." She hopes her smile looks more real than it feels. "Everything smells _amazing_ by the way."

Her mom looks at her with a slightly apprehensive look, then her face softens and she pats Lauren's cheek lovingly, "I made all your favourites."

"Thanks mom."

Dinner is semi-quiet. Once or twice, someone asks for something to be passed to them, or comments on the food. Lauren's mom asks about Bo, Lauren's blood curdles; she holds her spoon so hard she can feel it making an imprint on her palm. "She's fine." She says as evenly as she possibly can.

Her mom blessedly lets it go after that.

Her father breaks into some song from his childhood halfway through dinner. Lauren's mom seems like she'll cry, Lauren just shoves food into her mouth, desperate to be done and go to her room. "Don't know why the both of you are acting like such stuck-up bitches," he comments when he notices their discomfort, "it's just a fucking song. And a fucking good one no less."

Everything goes very still. Lauren's fingers are frigid and jumpy, her spoon shakes in her hand and she has to make a very conscious effort not to drop it. The look on Mrs. Lewis's eyes is terrible; she looks like she's been slapped, like she's in actual pain. "I'll go get dessert." She says quietly and leaves the table.

Lauren looks at her plate with more concentration than necessary. She shoves food in her mouth, maybe if she looks busy, he won't try and talk to her. Sometimes she feels like she can't sit still when she's around her father. Her whole body always tenses when he's around, like she's afraid she'll breathe wrong and he'll beat her.

"Apple pie." Her mom says, pulling Lauren from her thoughts. She looks defeated, small as she sits on her chair and slowly puts a napkin on her laps; she looks at Lauren, "eat up, honey." She smiles, Lauren wishes she wouldn't. The smile looks so out of place on her face and it breaks Lauren's heart.

Lauren takes a piece of the pie. Her stomach is too full, but this whole dinner has been a complete disaster, and she just wants to make her mom smile. "It's great." She says after her first bite.

Mrs. Lewis just nods.

Lauren takes another bite.

...

Lauren's head feels fuzzy and her stomach feels bloated but her mother's smiling. "Did you enjoy dinner?" She asks, clearly trying to sound chipper. Mr. Lewis has just gone to bed and Lauren and her mom are cleaning the dishes.

Lauren smiles, ignores the cramp in her stomach and the uncomfortable stretch in her chest. "Yeah. It was great. You really outdid yourself today."

Mrs. Lewis seems satisfied with that; she turns back to the dish in her hand, humming softly under her breath.

Lauren's more than a little thankful when they're done and she gets to go upstairs. She goes straight to the bathroom. She makes sure to lock the door and open the shower. Her mom worked so hard on dinner and it would kill her if she knew what Lauren intends to do. She's just so damn _full_ and she's pretty sure she won't be able to sleep, feeling the way she does. And there's nothing she dreads more than being alone with her thoughts.

This has to be done.

The sound of the water from the shower hitting the tiles fills the bathroom. Lauren kneels in front of the toilet. She has never liked retching; in fact, she can go as far as saying she _hates_ it. When she was younger, she would cry every time she felt sick. Just the thought of throwing up filled her with such dread she almost couldn't breathe. The fact that this is the second time she's retching in as many weeks is almost amusing to her.

She pulls her hair back from her face and leans down into the toilet bowl. She sticks one finger down her throat, nothing happens. So she sticks another one and wiggles them until she feels her food coming back up her throat. It's by far the most disgusting thing she has ever done. The pie taste _vile_ coming back up and something scratches her throat something _awful_. She sits with her back against the wall after she's done, tears running down her face and her whole body feeling so empty, _light._ She pants and rubs her tears away, then slowly gets up and flashes the toilet. She has to do it twice before everything is gone, then she decides to spray some freshener because the whole place smells rancid.

Finally when she's done, she turns off the shower and stands in front of the mirror. Her face looks bloated and her eyes are red and swollen. But her _chest_ , she doesn't think she has ever felt lighter. It's like she flashed away all the worthlessness and guilt when she flushed her food away.

She splashes some water on her face, flashes the toilet one last time, just in case, and walks out.

...

Lauren didn't expect to find Bo in her room. Usually, before Bo turns up, she calls or texts, so maybe that's why Lauren almost has a minor heart attack when she's sees her. Seated on the bed, lower lip between her teeth, hands clasped together, twisting and twisting, like she always does when she's nervous.

Lauren wipes her lips with the back of her hand subconsciously and pulls her sleeve down, "Bo. Hey." She whispers, afraid that if she speaks too loud, she'll drive Bo away again.

Bo suddenly stops twisting her hands, her eyes snap to Lauren like she hadn't been expecting to see her although she's in _her_ room. Her eyes are skittish, won't look at one thing for too long. Lauren balls her fists, resisting the urge to go to Bo and run her hands through Bo's hair in that way that always calms her down when she's this nervous. "Hey." Bo's voice sounds small, miserable. Lauren bites her lip, "I hope this isn't a bad time?"

"How did you get in?"

"The window." She says easily.

Lauren nods. She'd like to sit down. Retching made her weak for some reason, and she'd been looking forward to slipping into bed and hopefully having a dreamless night. But she doesn't think she can sit next to Bo and not have her skin burn, so she stands right where she is. "You haven't been answering my texts." She tries her best to make sure her voice doesn't shake, she only succeeds partially.

"I know. I'm sorry. I just-" Bo tags at her shirt and looks at the floor, avoiding Lauren's eyes completely, "I just needed some time to work through everything."

Everything goes quiet in Lauren's head. Her heart feels like someone is squeezing it and it feels like her body's too heavy for her legs. _This is it,_ she thinks, _Bo knows what a freak I am. I've lost her, this is it._ The itching in her fingers to just pinch at her damn wrist is so strong she can almost taste it. Half of her wishes she was back on that bathroom floor. She wants to feel that light again, that free. She shifts her weight from foot to foot. She feels sort of dizzy; her brain's tired of always having to deal with one thing or the other.

So fucking _tired._

"And?" She snaps at Bo without thinking.

"And I'm so sorry." Bo says, letting go of her shirt, "I am so fucking sorry, Lauren. I was high and my mind was fucked and I was drunk and I wasn't thinking. I am so _sorry._ We shouldn't –we shouldn't have done what we did. And more than anything, I shouldn't have left the way I did. It was a shitty thing to do and I am sorry."

A sudden lump rises up Lauren's throat from completely nowhere. She takes a step back, her head feels faint and there's a ninety percent chance that she might fall down. For _days_ she has been under the impression that s _he_ wronged Bo. Lauren knows, has known for _years,_ that Bo does things without thinking when there's something bugging her. And that night Lauren had known that Mr. Dennis's infidelity had been eating away at Bo's mind. Couple that with the fact that she had been drunk and high and there's just no way Lauren could hold Bo responsible for her actions. Lauren had known that she'll be the one to apologize. Thought she was the one who was in the wrong. This scenario had never even crossed her mind. And everything's just too much right now.

"Lo? You okay?"

"I'm fine." She holds herself up against the door, runs her fingers through her hair. "And- and it's fine. Water under the bridge, yeah?" This is good, Bo apologizing means she still wants to be friends. She's yet to figure out how fucked up Lauren is. And maybe Lauren can fix herself before Bo ever finds out. This is good. Great even. She smiles. "I've missed you." She hopes it sounds friendly.

Bo beams at her and Lauren doesn't even see her getting off the bed, just registers what's happening when Bo has her arms around her, squeezing her tight. "Thank you. Thank you so much." Bo says over and over again.

Lauren shuts her eyes.

 _Friends,_ she reminds herself. They're just friends.

* * *

Most of the time –all of the time actually, Lauren feels like she's too full of secrets. Like they're trying to claw their way out of her and she keeps pushing them down but it's so damn _exhausting_ and she doesn't know how much longer she can keep it up.

Her mom notices her scars. They're having dinner, just the two of them. Lauren's father recently got a job. It's nothing fancy. He works as a delivery guy for some big company in Chester. Lauren doesn't know how he landed that specific job. Sometimes, she has nightmares of him driving while drunk and losing control of the wheel. Every time the phone rings while he's not home, she thinks it's someone calling to tell her that he's in hospital or worse, dead. She always answers the phone with shaky fingers, and feels a sort of dizzying kind of relief when it turns out to be something trivial, like Mrs. Devon calling to tell them to 'get a hold of their 'wayward dog'. " _My Wendy is too young for puppies. Tame your beast."_ Most of the time he works 'til late and more often than not Lauren has to have dinner all by herself. Unless it's a rare day like this when her mom doesn't have to go to work early.

"What happened to your wrist?" She asks suddenly.

Lauren pulls her sleeve down so fast she's sure she looks a little out of it. The scars are more than just a single cut on her wrist now. Things with Bo haven't exactly gone back to normal. Lauren doesn't think she even knows what normal is anymore. Whenever she gets too close to Bo these days, her skin itches with something she cannot control no matter how much she tries to. Sometimes she tries to rip it off, with a sharp razor on soft skin. But all that comes out is blood and momentary relief. And she's always left with scars she constantly has to hide and feelings that still won't go away. It feels like that night at the back of Dyson's car branded itself into their relationship and it's now a constant shadow that just won't leave.

"Nothing. Just a little bruise." The words feel spikey on her tongue, the lie doesn't flow as smoothly as her other lies do. She concentrates hard on her plate, shoving food in her mouth, trying to evade any further conversation.

"That doesn't look like a little bruise." Her mom's voice is sharp, but there's a note of worry shadowing it. Before Lauren can think of what to do, she feels her mom's calloused hand grab her wrist. Lauren and Bo had a sleep over last night. Bo wore short shorts and a bra and insisted on dancing half the night away. Lauren had slipped away in the middle of the night and sat on the toilet with a sharp razor and shut eyes. She _knows_ her mom isn't going to like what she finds." Lauren?" Her mom's grip on her wrist goes slack, her voice sounds like it's drowning in tears.

Lauren jerks her hand away, "it's not what you think, okay? It's just, Bo and I sneaked into the community pool, I scratched my hand on the fence. It's no big deal." She tags her sleeves lower and brings her hands around herself, trying to keep her whole entire being from falling apart. She doesn't know how to tell her mom that this whole thing started because her dad hit her. She doesn't know how to tell her that it's going on because she's a freak who doesn't know how to keep her feelings in check. She doesn't know how to say the things she wants heard.

Her mom watches her like she's a landmine that will detonate under sudden pressure. Lauren half thinks she's going to cry, her eyes are full of tears and her hand is shaking. But then, a small watery smile spreads across her cheeks. It goes nowhere near her eyes, and Lauren thinks it would have been less heartbreaking if she'd cried. A sudden urge to pinch her wrist goes through Lauren's body and she feels like vomiting. She feels sick.

"Can I see?" Her mom asks quietly, her voice is earnest and hopeful and sad. And Lauren knows she didn't believe a word of her breaking in story.

Lauren shakes her head. Her brain feels foggy, a lump has lodged itself on her throat and something burning settles at the tip of her stomach. "No." She chokes out.

"Lauren..."

"No. I'm sorry. No."

...

Lauren waits until her mom leaves. She waits until she hears the door close and their car drive away before she slips out of bed and into a hoody and a pair of flip flops. She makes her way to Bo's house, vision cloudy and movements languid, Salmon following behind her like he's done since she was seven. Bo's father is in the living room, seated next to the secretary, laughing at something the woman's saying with a fond look in his eyes. The secretary has blonde hair and green eyes and she's in Bo's house more often than not. She dresses like the pretty girls on TV who always seem to get a happy ending one way or another.

Bo's mom is in the kitchen, cooking food that looks like it's enough to feed an army. She waves at Lauren, says she hopes Lauren's staying for dinner, then she lures Salmon into the kitchen with treats. Lauren smiles at her. She likes Mrs. Dennis more now than she did when she was younger. Sometimes she thinks she pities Mrs. Dennis more than she likes her. Because the fact still remains that she doesn't understand Mrs. Dennis., more so now than ever before.

Bo's sleeping when Lauren walks into the room. Soft music playing from her phone, hands tucked under her pillow. Lauren tags at the sleeves of her hoodie. Reminds herself over and over that she has no right to think of how beautiful Bo looks and how soft her skin always feels. Images of that skin under her fingers fleet through her mind and she squeezes her wrist so hard that the pain is almost shocking. Then she remembers her mom's face when she saw her scars and bile rises up her throat.

 _(She can never do anything right)._

Bo stirs, eyes fluttering open slowly, she smiles sleepily when she sees Lauren. "Hey you." Her voice is low and still laced with sleep. She pats the empty space on her bed. Lauren grasps the edges of her sleeves between her fingers and slowly moves to the bed. "Hey." Bo whispers when they're face to face.

Lauren looks at her pink lips and her thick eyelashes, swallows at the thousand memories that rush unbidden through her mind. Memories of those lips on her own. She wonders if they'll taste the same if she were to kiss Bo right now. Not like alcohol or weed, but of something that's so inherently _Bo._ She swallows and licks her lips, guilt gnawing at her chest. "Hi."

"You wanna talk about it?" Bo asks softly. Doesn't even bother asking if something's wrong because she knows Lauren enough to know that something _is_ wrong. Lauren shakes her head. Bo nods. She kisses Lauren's temple and her cheeks and the back of her eye lids. This is the first time they're kissing since that night, and Lauren had thought she was getting better at separating her stupid feelings with their friendship. But judging from the way her blood rushes so fast in her body that it leaves her dizzy, she'd clearly thought wrong. "Better?" Bo whispers, Lauren blinks once, twice, trying to gather her wits, but before she can say or do anything, Bo's lips are on hers.

Lauren wishes she could pull back. Wishes she could be strong enough to stop what's going on because now they can't blame it on weed or alcohol or anything else other than _want._ She wishes she could tell Bo to stop. But she can't. She can't do anything but pull her closer and deepen the kiss. Climb on top of Bo's laps and unzip her own hoodie, both of them panting and looking at each other with scared eyes. Both of them unable to stop. "It doesn't have to mean anything." Lauren says before she can think it through, "it's just- girls do this all the time. I saw Tamsin and Stacy make out once, at a party."

Bo nods. Seems to accept Lauren's logic and drags their lips back together. The first time they did this, it tasted like adventure and a hint of panic and recklessness. Tonight, it tastes like denial and confusion.

And Lauren isn't very sure how she feels about that.

...

"Hey babe." Mark's voice has gotten deeper in the past months. And his shoulders are broader and he has a bit of facial hair. It's like Lauren blinked and everything about him changed. She hates how hugging him now makes her stomach churn in the worst way. "Hey," he places his huge hand on her face. His fingers are too meaty, his skin isn't soft enough, "you okay?"

"I'm fine." Lauren says easily. Her eyes land on Bo who's kissing Dyson like she has something to prove to the world. Dyson's hands are on Bo's ass, Bo's hands are on his chest, and Lauren's heart is in her throat. "Do you want to go somewhere more private?"

It's been three days since Lauren and Bo had sex again. And things are back to being more than awkward. Lauren doesn't know exactly how they're handling it since they haven't talked about it. She's intent on following Bo's lead on this, and Bo's plan seems to be pretending it never happened, so that's what Lauren's going with for now.

"Uh yeah, sure." Mark smiles easily at her. He's more handsome now than he was before. Seems like the awkward teenage phase skipped him over. Lauren sometimes wonders why she can't just love him. He's good looking and nice and he treats her better than she's ever seen any other boy treat a girl. She wonders why whatever's broken inside her can't just fix itself and let her feel for him what she feels for Bo.

Half her problems would be solved if she did.

She leads them to the bathrooms. Laughing at his jokes as they wait for whoever's inside to walk out. The Santiagos are back and Dyson's hosting a party to welcome his best friend back. Val didn't come with them; apparently she's not ready to face everything just yet.

Two girls with blonde hair and short dresses walk out of the bathroom together, one of them completely avoiding eye contact and the other looking at Lauren and Mark with sly eyes. Mark chuckles as Lauren pulls him into the bathroom, "what's so funny?" Lauren asks, not quite able to keep the anxiety from her voice.

Mark shrugs and leans back against the sink, "you do know what they were doing in here, right?" He raises his brow, then shrugs when Lauren just looks at him silently, "not that I care, but I don't get why they'd hide in here to do it. What's the point of chicks doing hot things if they don't let anyone see?" He laughs a little and shrugs again. Lauren feels something hot simmering right under her skin. She longs for something sharp, something to cut open her skin with and let her blood cool before she combusts. She shakes her thoughts away and unzips Marks jeans. His eyes widen, his hands come to rest on top of hers, "are you sure?"

Lauren can understand his surprise. The two of them haven't gone any further than kissing while Mark has his hand underneath Lauren's shirt. Usually, when he tries going any further, she moves away from him like he's something repulsive and doesn't talk to him for days. He has learnt to not try taking things any further. "Yeah," Lauren nods. Her head feels heavy, nodding makes her feel woozy. "Totally sure. I'm the one who brought you up here, right?" She moves his hand away and sinks to the floor. A part of her wishes she had drunk more beer, alcohol tends to make things seem inconsequential to her. Like nothing really matters as much as it should.

She does everything the way she has seen it done in movies and the way Stacy said it should be done. She stands up when it's over, feeling more sick than she did when she begun. She wipes her lips with the back of her sweater. Mark smiles at her, dazed and sated. "Do you-" he awkwardly points at her torso, "d'you want me to return the favour? I mean I could like-"

"No." She shakes her head and takes a step back, "no, tonight was just for you." The lie sounds so much like the truth even _she_ almost believes it. Tonight wasn't for Mark in any way; tonight was about her trying to fix herself. And she failed. All she succeeded in doing was making her stomach feel like it wants to gnaw it's way right out of her body.

"And it was amazing. _You're_ amazing." He aims a kiss at Lauren's lips, but she tilts her head so that his lips land on her cheek instead. He frowns a bit, snaking a hand around her waist and pulling her close, "you okay?"

"I'm great. I just-I need to freshen up for a second so..."

"Yeah. Of course." He smiles and kisses her forehead, "I'll get you a drink, okay?"

"Thanks." Lauren says sincerely, she knows she'll need one.

She waits until she's sure he's at least twenty or so steps away before she locks the door and kneels in front of the toilet. She doesn't bother with one finger because she knows from experience that it doesn't help, just shoves two fingers down her throat and wiggles them until her eyes blur but nothing comes out. Her body is itchy with something utterly disgusting and it's making her want to peel off all her skin with her bare hands. It's almost feels like it's overflowing out of her, pouring from her very pores. Still, it won't come out no matter how much she wants it to. So she jabs the back of her throat, the force of her actions almost brutal. Like she's punishing herself for what she just did with Mark.

Finally – _finally,_ something comes out. It's nothing substantial. There's a whole lot of gagging and gasping and spitting in between. Her eyes burn like she's been crying for hours and her throat hurts so badly she half expects it to be bleeding. But Lauren doesn't care about any of that. A sort of detached calmness has draped itself on her. She feels clean, like whatever was lining her insides with disgust is now inside that toilet bowl.

She doesn't know how long she's seated on that cool bathroom floor, head resting on the wall, heart pounding and throat burning, half the contents of her stomach inside a toilet bowl. But finally, reality sets back in. It occurs to her that Mark might be wondering where she is. He might come looking for her, and she can't have that.

She feels a little dizzy when she stands up and flashes the toilet. Has to support herself on the wall all the way to the sink. She splashes water on her face, tries making her face less puffy, her eyes less red. She rinses her mouth when she's done, practices her fake smile until even she believes the girl in the mirror is happy.

Then she opens the door and walks out.

There's a girl leaning on the wall by the door, a shock of white hair on her head, her eyes coal black, wearing a short skirt and a tank top, chewing gum and looking entirely too unimpressed. "Took you long enough."

Terror surges up Lauren's veins like a bubbling volcano, ready to erupt. Her eyes widen, "I had a little too much to drink. It's a party, so that's not much of a shocker." Her tone is snappy, but beneath it is something so desperately panicked that it rings loud in Lauren's own ears.

The girl shrugs and lazily peels herself off the wall, "don' care." She tosses out carelessly and walks into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Lauren exhales and lays her head on the wall. Her whole body faint with relief.

...

When she goes back down to the party, it feels like she's overcompensating for something. She gulps down the drink Mark hands her, laughs at things that she doesn't even find funny, dances with her hands up in the air and eyes closed, lets Mark kiss her neck and slide his hands into her shirt, ignores the way his touch makes her skin itch and crawl and feel like it doesn't really belong to her.

Bo goes home with Dyson. "I'll sleep at yours in the morning. We have things to talk about." Bo's drunk, her words are loud and slurred and she keeps swaying on her feet.

Lauren nods and smiles. "Sure." She wonders if her eyes light up like they're supposed to. She wonders if Bo notices if they don't.

Mark offers to walk her home after Bo and Dyson are gone, but Lauren declines his offer. She has always been good at pretending. It comes almost naturally to her. But sometimes it gets tiring, and right now she needs a moment where she doesn't have to fake happiness. Where she can just be sad and not have anyone poking at her and poking at her, trying to find the root of her sadness. "I'll call you tomorrow." She kisses him because she has learnt he becomes mellow and a little stupid when she kisses him, like his brain melts or something.

He smiles and nods just like she hoped he would.

It's cold outside. Not cold as in freezing, but cold enough that no one would think it weird if they saw Lauren with sweater paws, her body curved within itself like she wants to disappear. Sometimes she wonders how that feels, not being here, not being constantly at war with herself. She thinks about Mrs. Santiago and how peaceful she'd looked. Then she thinks about Valerie and Hale and how sad they'd been and she thinks about her own mother and Bo and Lucy and she feels like the most selfish person on Earth.

She sighs and kicks at a stone. Her mind has started again, picking up one thought and letting it go and picking up another then another and another until her head's so full she feels like it'll crack open any time.

"Bathroom girl, right?"

Lauren's head snaps to the side, eyes wide. "You?" It's the girl from the bathroom, the one with white hair and dark eyes. Lauren narrows her eyes, "are you stalking me?"

"Actually no," she shrugs in that careless way she has about her, "I'm Skylar."

"I don't care what your name is," Lauren starts walking faster, "you can fuck right off." Then something occurs to her and her heart lurches and her hands feel suddenly clammy. "Are you like _gay_ or something?" The word leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, she tags even harder at her sleeves, "cause if you are and you're like- into me or something..."

Skylar arches a brow, a sarcastic sort of amusement playing on her face, "that horse you're sitting on is reaching for the skies, huh?"

"I'm just saying-"

"I'm not gay." Skylar says in a deadpan and keeps walking. Pulling a cigarette out of her skirt pocket and lighting it up with ease that only comes from doing something for a long time. Lauren takes a second for the embarrassment to not feel like it's filling all of her before she resumes walking. "You want?" Skylar offers gracefully.

Lauren considers saying no. But she has already embarrassed herself in front of Skylar enough and she needs to salvage s _omething._ She takes the cigarette, takes one long drag and passes it back. She tucks her hands in her pockets, "where are you going anyway?"

"Home." Skylar drops the cigarette and stomps on it with her boots. She pulls out a small baggie, places two pills on her palm and swallows them without water.

Lauren frowns at her, but thinks it better to not ask any questions. "You live around here?"

"I do now." She takes a detour when they get to Nicklaus's. Turning around and walking backwards, waving at Lauren with a smirk on her face, "see you around, high horse."

* * *

Lauren has learnt that lies become vague forms of the truth when you tell them with a smile. It's just the way things are. People will believe almost anything if you accompany your words with just the right smile.

"Are you sure?" Mark asks with one of his hands beneath Lauren's shirt and his pants down to his knees.

Lauren feels like there's pressure mounting inside her chest, gradually rising and she has to make a very conscious effort just to breathe. She places her palms on Mark's cheeks and smiles at him, "of course I'm sure."

After he's done and goes downstairs to fix them something to eat, she goes to the bathroom and opens the shower and kneels in front of the toilet with a clenched stomach and tight chest. Two fingers down her throat and everything pours into the toilet. Everything is never enough. Sometimes it's just acid and maybe a little bit of blood. Lauren doesn't care; blood just means that she's got everything out. That nothing is left inside of her except emptiness and scars. And Lauren's good at hiding scars.

"You okay?" Mark asks when he walks back into the room, two bowls of ice cream in his hands.

Lauren wipes her lips with the back of her hand and smiles at him. "I'm fine."

...

Lauren's relationship with her mom is weird now, all averted eyes and awkward silences. On the occasions that Lauren catches her mom looking at her; it's with way too concerned eyes shadowed by something sad. She acts like Lauren's somehow broken. And Lauren thinks that maybe she's onto something. Sometimes it's entirely too exhausting, this whole living business. It feels like she's working her body right down to the bone just to fucking _breathe._ And at times she just doesn't think it's worth it.

Lauren spends a lot of time with Bo. Which – which isn't very smart of her. They have sleepovers and watch television and go out to parties. They hang out in Bo's pool and smoke weed and come up with plans for Bo to antagonize her father. Lauren cuts her laps, because her wrists are too visible. Whenever she gets too close to Bo, she squeezes her cuts and reminds herself that they're _just friends._ When her brain refuses to let it sink in, she has sex with Mark. The whole purpose of having sex with Mark isn't coming to fruition. She doesn't feel as _fixed_ as she's supposed to feel. But she keeps trying because it's all she's got. And she keeps finding herself on her knees in front of the toilet every time after it happens. Fingers down her throat and drops of blood lining the toilet bowl.

( _It's entirely too exhausting, this whole living business_ ).

.

"But I don't want to." Lauren says to her mother. She means to sound snappy, but her whole body feels so fucking drained of everything that her tone just falls flat.

Her mom clucks her tongue and shoves more clothes into her suitcase, "you're acting like I'm sending you to prison, Lauren. You're just going to Nicklaus's and it's only for a night. I'll be back by tomorrow, I promise. Besides, Nicklaus has a sister about your age living with him. You should see this as an opportunity to make a new friend."

"I don't _want_ a new friend."

"But you need one. Honey, you know I love your relationship with Bo, but I hardly think it's healthy that she's the only person you spend time with."

"I spend time with other people." Her voice holds a note of defensiveness, her palms are balled, squeezing hard onto her thighs, "I have a boyfriend who I spend _plenty_ of time with."

Her mom considers her with an air of surprise for a moment, like she's not very certain where that outburst came from. Embarrassment curls itself into Lauren's chest; she unballs her fists and looks sheepishly at her feet. Her mom gives her a small smile, "It wouldn't hurt to make one more friend." She say gently.

Lauren nods. There's a pain coming from her legs, going all the way to her head and filling her up so that half of everything she's feeling right now is just dosed in _pain._ She bites her lip, "I guess. But- what about dad?"

Mrs. Lewis forces a shaky smile onto her face that makes her look like she's seconds away from crying, "Your father isn't your responsibility honey." She says sadly. Lauren wonders if her mother believes what she's saying. Or maybe, just like Lauren, she also lies to herself over and over again until her lies start sounding like truths in her head. She wonders if her mom has some sort of selective memory. If she has chosen to forget that just last week, she came home to find Lauren cleaning her father's vomit from the kitchen floor at three in the morning. Or maybe she hasn't forgotten. Maybe she has just twisted the truth in her head into something she finds easier to deal with. Mrs. Lewis places a palm on Lauren's cheek, there are tears dancing in her eyes and Lauren hopes she won't cry. Lauren already has a tough time keeping herself together; she doesn't think she can deal with anyone else's pain right now. "I love you honey." Mrs. Lewis says quietly.

Lauren just smiles at her.

...

Lauren stands in front of Nicklaus's door, bag hanging from one shoulder, thoughts running every which way in her head like they always do. It's cold now, the ground is wet and her socks feel soggy. She wiggles her toes inside her boots. She's been meaning to buy new ones, but she just lent her mother nearly all the money she had saved, so new boots will have to wait. She sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. She really doesn't want to be here. But going anywhere else isn't an option. She's almost deathly afraid of her father and his quick temper and even quicker hands. Spending the night with him –just the two of them in the house – would mean anxiety which in turn almost always means razors on her skin and blood on the floor and she's not in the mod to deal with that at the moment. Going to Bo's is out of the question since the Dennises are going out for one of their company dinners, and going to Mark's means having sex with him which means her on her knees in front of the toilet and again, she's just not in the mood.

So she takes a deep breath and rings the bell. She waits for about three minutes and is about to ring again when the door flies open and in front of her stands the girl from the party. Her hair's still white and her eyes are still dark but she's wearing a tee shirt and baggy jeans today. Lauren clutches harder onto her bag.

"High horse," The girl leans on the door frame, hands crossed across her chest, lips stretched in a smile that Lauren knows is just meant to rile her up, "to what do I owe this visit?"

"My name's _Lauren._ It's a six letter name, get it right."

"Still with the stick up your ass I see."

Lauren sighs and wiggles her wet toes. She's hungry as hell. She honest to god cannot recall the last meal she ate. All she knows is that it's in some toilet somewhere. It feels like her body's giving up on her. The last thing she has the energy for is arguments with an annoying girl. "Can I please talk to Nicklaus? He knows why I'm here. He and my mom planned this whole thing."

The girl regards her with curious eyes for a moment before moving away from the door, seemingly having lost interest in riling Lauren up. "Nick's not home. But he told me you were coming." She says, walking up the stairs. Lauren assumes she's supposed to follow her, so she does. "This is where you'll be spending the night. I tried cleaning it up a little but the place is a damp."

The room looks like Lauren's, except with less personality. Lauren likes it. Not part of it is littered with memories she doesn't even want to recall. The bed doesn't have a pillow that smells like Bo and the wall isn't littered with memories of Lucy and of times past. She smiles. "It's okay."

"Cool. I'm gonna go order pizza. You do eat pizza, right?"

"Of course."

"Great. Any special requests?"

"Anything's fine."

Skylar leaves the bedroom after that and Lauren waits 'til she's sure Skylar's really gone before she starts unpacking. She didn't pack much since she'll only be staying a day. So within minutes she's all done and is lying on the bed, texting Bo.

Bo is amused that Lauren's at Nicklaus's. She laughs when Lauren whines over how annoying Skylar is.

" _You should come to my dad's company party with me. That way, you can keep me company and take a break from Skylar."_

Lauren tries declining the offer but in the end, she ends up saying yes. It's too easy for her, saying yes to Bo. Even when she _knows_ she shouldn't. Even when she knows her mind will force to punish herself for it later, she still says yes. She _always_ says yes.

Bo lends her a dress. It's one of her flowing red ones and she keeps saying that it makes Lauren look ridiculously pretty. Lauren stands in the mirror and looks and looks, but she just doesn't see it. "Come on hot stuff, we've got places to be." Bo grabs her hand and leads her downstairs then outside and into the car. Lauren's skin burns with Bo's touch. Kind of feels like there are a thousand candles right underneath her skin, burning and burning. She presses hard into her lap and almost sighs with relief when the pain replaces the burning. Now she can sit close to Bo without feeling like peeling off her damn skin.

Mrs. Dennis doesn't seem very pleased with Lauren's presence. But she acts cordial and introduces Lauren to their friends as Bo's longtime friend. "Best friend." Bo always corrects and grabs Lauren's hand and smiles at her. Every time it happens Lauren looks at the waiters passing with glasses of champagne and she wonders if one of them could have pity on her and give her a glass. Or a bottle. She's not very picky. She just wants alcohol. Wants reality to be distorted a little because just pain isn't cutting it anymore. "You okay?" Bo asks.

Lauren smiles. People will believe anything if you say it with a smile. "I'm great." She takes a sip of her drink and looks around at the people wearing expensive clothes and fake smiles. "Are these parties always like this?"

"More or less." Bo says around a shrug. Then Mr. Lewis leans down and whispers something in Bo's ears and Bo's whole face turns stony so suddenly that Lauren thinks she's going to hit something. "I'll be right back." She says to Lauren softly then turns to follow her father who's walking towards a group of old men.

Lauren looks at her walk away. Notices the way her body moves so gracefully with such natural ease. She wonders if she walks like that. Then she almost scoffs at her own thought. There's no way on Earth she could walk like that. She looks up to find Mrs. Dennis's eyes on her, they look blank but not completely, there's something questioning in them. Lauren wonders if Mrs. Dennis saw the way she was looking at Bo like a creep. Was she being too obvious?

 _Fuck._

She smiles a smile she doesn't feel at Mrs. Dennis then takes another sip of her drink.

Exhausting. It's all so damn e _xhausting._

...

"Come with me." Bo says and grabs Lauren's hand. They've been at this party for almost thirty minutes and Lauren's bored out of her mind. She doesn't really know how Bo stands them. So she's okay to let Bo lead them to a spare room. Dark and hushed. The sounds that filled the other parts of the house are nothing but a soft heartbeat through the walls here. The room smells like dust and wetness and it's filled with Bo's laughs and Lauren's chuckles and it's easily Lauren's favourite room in this whole house.

Lauren fumbles, touching the wall with her index finger and knocking over things until her fingers find a light switch. She caresses it for a second just to make sure it's what she's looking for.

"Lo, come on." Bo calls impatiently and Lauren loves the way the nickname sounds falling from Bo's lips so she doesn't switch on the light just yet and when Bo whines, " _Lo."_ Lauren smiles in the darkness.

"Let there be light." She says in a voice much deeper than her usual one then switches on the light. Bo lets out a happy yell and Lauren laughs at her silliness before plopping ungraciously next to her on the springy bed. It bounces a bit with her weight and it's fun so Lauren does it again and again until Bo joins her and they're nothing but two idiots bouncing on a bed like a couple of children. When they finally stop, they're panting and laughing and Lauren swears she has never seen anything in the world as bright as Bo's eyes. "I love your eyes." She blurts out because her brain to mouth filter is practically nonexistent at the moment.

Bo's lips curl up, gentle and pleased, "thanks. I love yours too."

"They're nothing special." Lauren shrugs because it's true. She should know, she studies them in front of the mirror almost obsessively.

"Modesty doesn't suit you."

Lauren doesn't know what to say. She doesn't really know how to take compliments from anybody because she knows most of the time; it's just people trying to be nice. Lauren doesn't know what to say so she doesn't say anything at all. She just writhes her fingers together in her lap and watches as Bo produces a small baggie from her bra. "What are those?"

"No idea." Bo gives her a cheeky smile that's more in her eyes than on her lips. "But they're going to make us feel amazing. Ryan gave them to me earlier. He always has the best shit." Lauren nods because she doesn't know what else to do. "One time he brought E to a party Dyson and I were hosting. Best party _ever."_

"So you've done this before?"

"Yeah. A couple times, maybe more."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Are we gonna get high or play twenty questions?" Bo asks with an outstretched hand full of little red pills. They kind of look like the candy that Lauren used to have when she was little. They always gave her such a rush and she would literally try to climb up walls after having them. It got so bad one day that she almost broke her arm and her mother banned the candy from ever entering her house.

She wants to say no thanks. She knows that's what she should say. But Bo's voice is short where it had been edgeless and her eyes are hard where they had been warm and bright and Lauren hopes taking one of these pills will give her the other Bo back. The one who wouldn't let go of her hand and bounced on a spring bed with her like they were a couple of idiots.

So she picks one pill. Then she picks another because Bo's lip is only quirking and that's not enough for Lauren. She wants her to smile, she wants her to laugh. Then she picks another because it seems like Bo's smiles are directly proportional to how many pills Lauren takes and Lauren wants her to smile as big as she possibly can.

She ends up picking six pills. Six is good. It's not too much and it's okay. Plus Bois smiling now. Bo is smiling and everything is fine.

...

The pills taste fruity and syrupy and for a moment, Lucy thinks they really are the candy from her childhood.

They do nothing for her. She swallows them without chasing them down with water because they're sweet. She swallows one, then two, then three at a go and lies back on the bed, wondering why nothing is happening.

She feels drunk. But she kind of always feels a little drunk when she's around Bo. Her mind is always muddled with way too many thoughts and the constant battle of trying to fight feelings that more often than not always end up winning. So she doesn't think feeling drunk means much

It's quiet in the room for a few minutes then. "Lo?" Bo's voice sounds warmer than it was before, it's almost edgeless now. It feels nice. Bo's voice feels nice and Lauren doesn't want her to ever stop talking.

"Hmm?" Lauren hums so Bo knows she's listening to her.

"Tell me something?"

"Something like what?"

"Anything." She says then adds after a moment, "something about you."

Lauren closes her eyes and strokes her palm over the bed cover. It feels soft under her touch, like a cat's fur. She wants to keep stroking it forever.

"Lo?" Bo prompts.

Lauren doesn't know what exactly it is that Bo wants to hear. She licks her lips and swings her feet back and forth. "I sometimes want to be seven again." She says quietly, afraid to let the words make their way across the walls of the room. She has never told anyone else this before. She's always embarrassed to even think about it. "I hate growing up. It's just- it's not really what I thought it would be. I kinda miss being a kid. Being six or seven. Still having that wide eyed childhood innocence and believing in the world. I miss believing in things."

"Like what?" Bo asks softly.

Lauren shrugs. _Happiness,_ she wants to say. But that sounds sad. "I don't know. Anything really. I just want to believe in _something,_ you know?"

"Not really. Believing in people has never gotten me shit. When I was younger, my mom used to tell me that family is the most important thing. That you have to fight for it no matter what. But when I told her yesterday about my dad and his secretary, she slapped me and told me to mind my own business. He fucks around and _I_ get slapped for it." She chuckles and rolls over so she's now looking at Lauren. "I hate him so much. And I hated being seven."

"What do you mean? Our lives were great at seven."

"Yeah. Once I moved to Edwardsville. Before that my life was company dinners and endless forced smiles and late nights talking to people I hated when all I wanted to do was sleep. My dad was trying to get funding for his company and for some reason; he needed to show me off to do it. I think that's when I stopped being their daughter and became their show doll. Sometimes I don't even know if they love me or if they love the idea of me."

Lauren wants to say 'of course they love you', because it seems like the most normal response in this situation. And maybe it's the pills or maybe it's the fact that she's hungry but whatever the reason, she just doesn't have it in her to lie. She knows how Bo's parents treat Bo. And she knows that's not love. "Well, _I_ love you."

Bo's lips stretch in a smile that goes all the way to her eyes and she lies back down, wraps her feet around Lauren's and they move their legs together, "I know. You're literally the only good thing that has ever happened to me."

Lauren wants to tell her that she's a person, not a thing. But it seems like the wrong thing to say. And she feels like Bo would be upset if she said it. Sometimes it feels like she lives her whole life walking on eggshells, trying not to crack the wrong one and hurt someone's feelings. She laces hers and Bo's fingers together and keeps her words to herself.

* * *

It's August, and Lauren's not very sure how much longer she can keep this up.

She's more than just tired now, more than just exhausted. What she feels is something more bone deep. Something that looms over her every waking moment, shadowing her every move and bathing all of her actions in fatigue.

Everything's a chore now. Opening her eyes in the morning, getting out of bed, taking a shower. She even has to make a very conscious effort in order to remember how to breathe. Her mind never turns off. It's like her brain has this perverse need to dissect every single minuscule action or event and it's slowly draining the life out of her.

She has two base emotions now. Emptiness- like a doll that's had all its stuffing ripped out. And overwhelmed. Like a balloon that's been filled to its breaking point and it's seconds away from bursting.

Today's an empty day. Empty days are hard. Well, actually, all days are hard. Lauren's not very sure she can recall a time when she wasn't fighting a battle within herself every single minute of every single day. She knows she was once happy, but she feels such a complete sense of detachment from those particular memories that they might as well be someone else's.

She stands in front of the mirror and stares at her body. It's leaner now, and her breasts have grown. Mark seems to like it. He says she's getting hotter by the day. But it still looks so tragically plain to Lauren. She sighs and takes a shower or more like stands under the shower and just lets the water hit her body. She never has the will to do anything on empty days. Everything inside her just feels so fucking hollow.

She takes very meticulous care while choosing her clothes. She knows she looks a mess. No one has really bothered to look at her keenly. Bo's parents are getting a divorce and it's taking its toll on Bo's mother which in turn is taking its toll on Bo. Mrs. Lewis is busier than ever these days, and when she's not at work, she's on the phone with Lucy, whispering things Lauren doesn't care to know. Mr. Lewis was laid off work. He'd shown up to work drunk on more than one occasion and the boss finally had enough of him. Lauren had to take a bus to Chester to pick him up, drunk out of his mind. He'd puked on her. She didn't say a word to him. Everyone has their own thing going on, so no one has the time to really _look_ at Lauren. But if they did have the time, Lauren's sure they'd be able to tell that something's up with her, right off the bat. And that's the _last_ thing she wants.

So she takes extra care to look as good as she can on the outside, so no one will bother to look too keenly at what's on the inside. So far, it's worked marvelously for her.

When she's done, she heads straight to the kitchen and takes out half a tray of eggs and bacon and sausages from the fridge. She fries them all then cuts up some fruit. Lots of fruit actually, just nothing acidic. Then she heats up the pizza from last night and sets everything on the table together with a liter of water.

She's very mechanical with the way she eats. Healthy foods first, that way most of the nutrients will be absorbed by the time she's done eating. She saves the fruit for last and makes sure she takes big gulps of water in between bites, makes things come up a lot easier. She has also learnt that cutting food into small bits and chewing as thoroughly as possible reduces the chunkiness which in turn reduces the choking. She takes almost half an hour to get everything down. She's in no hurry. Her whole week has been planned around this particular day. She chose the day when she knew no one would be home and she'll have all the time to go through the whole process the way she needs to.

She likes this. It sounds a little sad if you think about it, but the thing is, everything goes quiet when she's having one of her binge sessions. Her whole world boils down to the single action of eating. Her mind stops being a whirlwind of emotion and her world stops spinning around without her consent.

Then after she's done, she doesn't feel that harrowing emptiness anymore. Instead, she feels crushingly full. It's food mixed with guilt mixed with self-loathing mixed with a million other emotions that she can't put a finger on and she feels like she'll choke to death with the weight of it all if she doesn't let it out as soon as possible. It's almost inevitable, her finding herself in front of the toilet, on her knees, with the sink and the shower running. She doesn't need to shove fingers down her throat these days, not all the time anyway. Just clenching her stomach as hard as she can sometimes does the trick. She chokes and she gags and her eyes sting and her head throbs but that's okay.

Because as soon as she gets everything out, a feeling of calmness washes over her and everything goes blessedly _quiet,_ she's weightless. Gravity doesn't exist to her, the world can't touch her, there's nothing to bring her down. But that only lasts for a few minutes. Then the emptiness sets in, and the guilt comes rushing right after it. And the self-loathing comes after that.

And she's right back where she started.

* * *

Lauren feels like her whole existence is just a collection of secrets. Ranging from mildly disturbing to intensely disgusting. All her secrets are just piled up inside her, stacked one on top of the other; taking up so much of her she doesn't have space any left for other things. Sometimes she stares into the toilet bowl when her head is still throbbing and her throat is still burning. And she wonders if the secrets will come out if she tries hard enough to make them. And sometimes she does try. She tries until blood is all she can taste and pain is all she can feel. But the secrets still remain inside her, one stacked neatly on top of the other.

"Skylar." Lauren calls, walking into Nicklaus's house. It's been weeks since that first time that she and Skylar hanged out, and though she wouldn't exactly call them friends, she wouldn't say they're enemies either. On the very long list of people Lauren can't stand, Skylar's name only makes an appearance on the days when Lauren finds her particularly annoying. And besides, hanging out with Skylar is a good distraction from Bo and Mark and literally everything going on at home.

Lauren's mother has started looking at her weird, a little more keenly than before and Lauren _hates_ it. A lot of her coping mechanisms thrive on secrecy. She's not stupid. She knows if anyone were to ever find out what she does when no one's around they'll be disgusted and they'll make her stop. And that's the one thing that she cannot have because she doesn't know how else to cope with everything going on inside and outside of her.

Her coping skills might be utter shit, but they're all she's got.

"Sky." She calls as she walks towards Skylar's bedroom. "Sky where-" she pushes open the door to Skylar's room. For the past two weeks or so, every part of her body has been aching almost constantly. Walking is a fucking chore, her teeth hurt even when she's chewing something as simple as gum and she has a near constant headache. Anytime she's walking anywhere, all she can think of is getting somewhere where she can sit the hell down. That's why all her thoughts are just focused on getting into Skylar's room and plopping herself on the bed and she doesn't even notice Skylar's panicked look until she's halfway inside the room.

Skylar's standing in front of her full length mirror in shorts and something white on top. Lauren can't tell what it is because Skylar's got her hands covering her chest, eyes wide and smoldering, the vein at her temple is prominent and although she looks plenty angry, it's the sheer panic in her eyes that makes Lauren stop in her tracks.

"Sky what's-"

"Get out." She says, her tone eerily measured, she's holding herself so tight Lauren thinks she's trying to squeeze herself out of existence.

"Sky..."

"I said get out. Get out _now!"_

"I just-"

" _Now_ Lauren."

"Okay." Lauren says quietly and takes a step back. She has absolutely no idea what on Earth she has done to upset Skylar _this_ much. "I'm sorry." She whispers before she walks out, shutting the door behind her.

...

Lauren calls, and texts and goes over to Nicklaus's house, twice. Each time, Nick tells her that Skylar's not at home. Lauren knows for a fact that that's a lie because the lights in Skylar's room are on and Lauren can clearly see her shadow. She doesn't know what she did that was so wrong. She gets that some girls are really sensitive when it comes to their bodies, but it's not like Lauren even saw _anything._ She just cannot understand why Skylar's acting the way she is and to be honest, it hurts.

"She'll come around. Just- give her some time." Bo says when Lauren tells her what happened. They're sitting in front of Bo's porch, sharing a cigarette. Lauren hates the taste of it, and the way it's burning her already sore throat isn't helping matters much. But she's afraid of saying no and having Bo upset. So she just takes a drag every time Bo passes it over. This is the first time they're hanging out just the two of them in weeks. And Lauren's afraid of doing anything to ruin their time together.

"How're things with your parents?" Lauren asks and she grinds the now finished cigarette beneath her boots.

Bo shrugs, fishes a blunt of weed out of her coat pocket and lights it up. "Fucking sucks. My mom's acting like it's the end of the world or something." She takes a drag, then passes it to Lauren who only holds the blunt for a few seconds then passes it back without even smoking, "you'd think she actually _wants_ to stay with the cheating scum." She takes another drag, rubs her temple and sighs, "I just wish they'd get it over and done with."

Lauren nods. Her hands feel cold. Her hands always feel fucking cold these days, even when she's wearing mittens. She wrings them together and looks at the snow that has recently started falling. She wonders what Bo thinks of what they do. The thing is, Bo has a boyfriend, and Lauren has a boyfriend, yet they still have sex with each other at least three times a week. And Lauren doesn't know how that's any different from what Bo's father is doing. If he's such a vile person then well, they're vile people too. She more so than Bo because for her they're fucking feelings involved. She's not just cheating on Mark; she's cheating on him and taking his feelings for granted. She's making a fool of him on so many different levels.

"You okay?" Bo asks, putting off the blunt, "you kinda zoned off there for a moment."

"I'm fine." Lauren says with a smile.

Bo nods and gets up, put her hands in her pockets and gives Lauren a cheeky smile, "you wanna get out of here?"

Lauren frowns, "by here do you the town or your porch?"

"I meant the porch but, getting out of town sounds great."

So they get out of town. They get into Bo's car, and they drive. No destination in mind, just the thought of _going._ They have music blaring and Lauren has a packet of Cheetos on her laps and for a fleeting moment, she feels _not sad._ They find themselves in some small diner in Chester and they order pancakes and milk and they talk about stupid, silly things. At some point, Lauren reminds Bo of one of the pranks they played on Lucy and Bo laughs so hard, milk comes out of her nose.

' _I love you.'_ Lauren thinks, looking at Bo and feeling something light in her chest which for the first time in a long time isn't intricately fused with emptiness. ' _I love you so much.'_

 _..._

They go back home minutes past eleven and they're still giggling messes when they stumble into the Dennis household. Mrs. Dennis is standing in the living room, arms crossed, looking severely unimpressed. "Where were you?" She asks, completely ignoring Lauren's presence.

Bo frowns and she toes off her shoes, "out?" She sounds as confused as Lauren feels. Lauren has known, for a very long time, that Mrs. Dennis doesn't completely approve of hers and Bo's relationship. Thinks they're too codependent or something. But Mrs. Dennis has never outright shown her disapproval before.

"It's almost midnight."

"Were we supposed to go somewhere tonight or something? Cause if not then- I don't get why you're so pissed."

"I'm pissed because you're not supposed to go out to god knows where and come back home in the middle of the night, laughing with your _friend_ like a bunch of _harlots_."

The way she spits out the word 'friend' and the look she gives Lauren while saying it makes Lauren's entire world come to a screeching halt. Her hands feel colder than they normally do. Her vision gets fuzzy and her chest feels like it's too big for her body. She knows herself enough to know that she's extremely close to a panic attack. She wrings her fingers. Wants to excuse herself and go to the bathroom so she can just get everything out before this panic smothers her to death.

But the thought of leaving Bo with her mother when Mrs. Dennis is in the state she's makes her feel worse than the terror rising up inside her. So she presses hard on her thighs with balled fists hoping that maybe the pain will keep her mind present.

" _I'm_ the harlot? You're the one who's desperate enough to stay with a man who _repeatedly_ cheats on you and treats you like pure shit, and _I'm_ the harlot. He brings his mistress home and you cook them _dinner_ for fuck's sake."

"You will not speak about your father like that. Not in my presence."

"Oh my god." Bo yells, running her fingers through her hair and gripping it hard, "when will you get that he doesn't give a _shit_ about you. He fucked his stupid secretary in his office right down the hall, while you were in the house, three fucking doors away from them, repeatedly."

The slap that lands on Bo's face is so loud that it almost makes Lauren jump. Mrs. Dennis is seething. This is the very first time in Lauren's life that she has ever seen the woman look anything less than one hundred percent composed. Lauren's just about to go stand in front of Bo least Mrs. Dennis has any ideas of slapping her again. But Bo speaks before she can even take a step.

"You know what," she sighs, sounding defeated. "Don't sign the divorce papers. Stay with him for the rest of your life and keep being miserable. I don't even give a fuck anymore." She grabs Lauren's hand and leads them out of the room.

...

As soon as the door to Bo's bedroom closes behind them, Lauren wants to hug Bo. She doesn't even want to calculate each and every single one of her actions like she does before she makes any contact with Bo these days. She just wants to hug her and make things even a little bit better.

But before she can make a move, Bo's lips are on hers and Bo's pushing her against the wall. Her lips are soft and her eyes won't meet Laurens. She slips her hand beneath Lauren's sweater and her touch bleeds into Lauren's skin.

"Bo." Lauren whispers. Hating her body for how easily it responds to Bo's touch.

"Please- please don't talk." Bo sounds like she's crying, but her lips won't stop moving all over Lauren's skin, setting Lauren on fire. And Lauren knows that later she'll have to let that fire out with something sharp. And it's going to hurt like a bitch. If she had any self-preservation instincts, she would push Bo off of her right now. But all she can think is that **'** _Bo needs this.'_ And Lauren loves her and there's just something ingrained in her to give Bo what she needs. Even if Lauren herself will have to pay for it later on her fucking knees with a harrowingly empty stomach.

It hurts. Not that that's a surprise, everything in Lauren's body hurts nowadays. And this just hurts more because her mind's already thinking up ways of punishing herself when it's done. Sex with Bo is never like sex with Mark. Lauren's always present when she has sex with Bo. But not today. Today she retreats to a small corner in her mind and just lets Bo do whatever she wants and lets her boy respond however it wants to. Maybe this way, she can convince her mind to punish her less. ' _I was only helping a friend out,_ she'll tell herself, ' _no one deserves to be punished for helping a friend out.'_

It's over and done with within minutes. Bo moves to the corner of her bed. Knees pulled to her chest, head between her legs, body shaking with sobs. She looks small, nothing like the bigger than life girl who was laughing in the diner in Chester. And Lauren knows she should comfort her. Some part of her is almost desperate to. But all her mind can think of is getting home and doing what needs to be done. She doesn't say a word to Bo as she fixes her clothes and walks out of Bo's room and out of the Dennis household.

She's dreading getting home. She's dreading what she's going to do. And there's a part of her that's just telling her to stop. Telling her to just turn back and go to Bo's and have a talk, like a real actual conversation on what's going on because all these secrets are just so damn _suffocating_. But another part of her, the part that feels overwhelmed with everything, the part that actually _craves_ punishment, makes her keep walking. Because as twisted as it is, she has come to associate sex with punishment. And guilt. It doesn't matter who she's having sex with –Bo or Mark, she just always feels so guilty after and the only way to get rid of the guilt is through punishment.

And it seems so easy; it's pure logic that if sex makes her feel guilty then she shouldn't have it. But she can't say no to Bo. And even when she knows the consequences, she still craves Bo's touch. And almost every time after she has had sex with Bo, she has to have sex with Mark. It feels like she's balancing the scale a little bit.

She doesn't know exactly what it is that she eats when she gets home. She's on autopilot. Doing what needs to be done. And besides, everything tastes bland at this point so it doesn't really matter. She eats fast. Today has been a full day. She hates eating on full days because she already feels so damn full and just adding food on top of everything else makes her feel like crying her eyes out. That's why she only played around with her food at the diner.

No one's home. Her father's out, taking out his frustrations on beer, and her mom's at work. Even so, she still opens the shower and the sink because the sound of water hitting the tiles is as important to the process as the food. It gives the illusion of washing filth away. Everything come up so easily. She still chokes and she still gets headaches and exhaustion hits her like a million ton truck. But the act of retching itself is now so damn easy that some twisted part of her actually feels proud.

Finally, something she's great at.

...

She goes downstairs to clean up after almost an hour. She feels light. And dizzy. And in so much fucking pain that all she wants to do is sleep. She almost, literally _cries_ when she walks into the kitchen to find her father standing in front of the island. Lauren hadn't really realized how much she'd eaten, but evidently she had eaten a lot. There are wrappers and bowls and plates and cartons everywhere.

"What's this?" Her father asks. He's drunk, but not drunk enough to not give a shit.

Lauren bites her nails and looks around, "I had a few friends over and it turned into something bigger than I'd anticipated. I'm sorry. I'm going to clean it all up."

"Cleaning up isn't the damn point. Your mom and I are fucking struggling to put food on the table and you're having _parties?"_

Lauren wants to remind him that only her mom struggles to put food on the table. He struggles to drown his system in alcohol. But she's in enough trouble as it is and even if she wasn't, she wouldn't have the guts to say that to him. "It wasn't a party." She says timidly. Taking a step back because she knows that look in his eyes and she doesn't like it. "I just had a few friends over."

"I don't care!" In one sweeping motion of his hands, he throws almost half of the contents from the island, "you and your stupid sister are ungrateful brats. We do everything for you and you just spit it back in our faces."

"It wasn't a party." She repeats, almost desperately and takes steps back until her back hits the wall. "I just had a few friends over."

"I don't care." He's getting angrier and she's getting more and more scared. She'd run out of the kitchen, but she just put her body through almost an hour of retching. There's absolutely no way she could run anywhere right now. Unless she wants to fall, which would be a disaster since her bones are weak enough as it is.

She's just about to sink to the floor and curl within herself and just wait for whatever's to come since she doesn't know what else to do, when the sound of a bag hitting the floor startles her father so bad he turns around, forgetting about his anger at her for a moment.

"What's going on here?"

It's her mom. Eyes wide, a stain of something red smeared on her white dress, hands shaking. Her face looks strange and hard, and for a fleeting moment, Lauren panics. The kitchen still looks a mess and some part of her is afraid her mom won't buy the story that she had a few friends over. Maybe today's the day she's going to find out what Lauren does, and maybe a small part of Lauren actually _wants_ her to. But a huge part of her is so scared of being found out, of having the one thing in her life that she actually has some control over be taken away, that her whole body goes rigid. Her mind craves a toilet bowl, craves to retch out everything inside her until there's nothing left of her, until she's not here anymore.

"Irene-" Lauren's father starts, his voice is shaky. He sounds scared.

Lauren's mother says something back. She actually _yells_ it, but whatever it is, it doesn't register in Lauren's mind. Her body has shut down. A part of her thinks it's some sort of protective mechanism. Her body's finally had enough and it has checked out. But a bigger part of her thinks that this is her giving up. She can't take anymore and she just wants everything to stop.

She doesn't know how long she's out for, but by the time she comes into herself again, she's in her room, seated on her bed, and her mother's pacing around. It should scare her, the fact that her mind has blacked out god knows how many minutes of her life, but it doesn't. She actually wishes it would happen again, over and over again. She wishes her mind would black out her whole life.

"Are you listening to me?" Her mom asks.

"Of course I am." She answers, then adds a small smile because that's what she does when she wants people to believe her. Only this time it doesn't work and her mom's whole face crumbles within itself. Lauren thinks she's going to cry. And an irrational part of her is already angry at that. Just the thought of dealing with anyone's pain pisses her the fuck off. She can't even stand her own pain for Pete's sake.

"Oh god," her mom plops herself ungracefully on the bed, like her weight has suddenly become too much to handle, she looks at Lauren with wide vulnerable eyes, "how long has this been going on?" She chokes out.

Lauren just looks at her. She doesn't really understand the question. How long has what been going on? She wants to ask. "Not long." She says instead. It sounds like a safe answer.

"Don't lie to me Lauren. Please just – has he ever hit you before?"

Lauren bows her head and starts picking fretfully at an unraveling stitching of her bed sheet, trying her hardest to hide the fact that her stomach is twisting uncomfortably, almost violently really, threatening to tear itself right out her body. Every single thing feels out of her control and she doesn't like it. It makes everything feel like it was for nothing. All that damn work she did just to keep everything together is going to shit because she wasn't smart enough to clean the damn kitchen when she was supposed to.

"It was my fault." Her words come out sluggish. Her minds working at a rate that's kind of dizzying, trying to come up with a story that will sound believable, "I had – I'd touched his stuff even though I knew I wasn't supposed to and when he asked me about it I uh- I became rude and kinda bratty." She chances a look at her mom. Mrs. Lewis is outright crying now, tears flowing freely down her face. Lauren panics even more. "He didn't hit me too hard." She blurts out in an effort to salvage the situation, her words stumbling over each other, "he didn't even hit me really. It was hardly a slap."

"When?" Is all her mom asks.

Lauren bites her lip, "last year."

" _Fuck."_

"But it has never happened again."

"Stop defending him!" Her mom yells, and Lauren doesn't know how to explain to her that she's not defending him. She couldn't give less of a fuck over what happens to him. She's just – she has gone to _unimaginable_ lengths to keep her secrets secret and even the thought of revealing one of them makes her feel physically _sick_. Mrs. Lewis wipes her tears furiously, like she's angry at herself, and runs her hands through her hair, bites her nails and starts pacing. "I am- I'm going to call your sister, tell her you're going to be staying with her for a while."

"What?" Lauren almost screeches, this day just keeps getting worse and worse. Living at home might be hell on Earth, but its hell on Earth that she's used to. That she has some sort of control over. What the fuck is she supposed to do at Lucy's when things get overwhelming with Lucy breathing down her neck at all times of the day? "Why do I have to go stay with Lucy?"

"Because I cannot leave you alone with – with _him._ And I can't just not go to work. I still have bills to pay."

"Then I can stay at Bo's." She yells, desperation mounting inside her almost a little too rapidly. Everything about this day has been utter fucking chaos and the moment she has even a second to herself, she's locking herself up in the bathroom until she feels nothing but empty, empty, _empty._

"No. No you're going to your sister's and that's final. I'll just – I'll, I'll fix this and then you can come back home."

...

Lauren begs, she pleads, she cries and is halfway towards throwing tantrum, but her mom refuses to badge. She books Lauren a seat on the earliest bus leaving Edwardsville.

"I have school, I have commitments, I can't just leave."

"Yes you can and you will. Now, go pack your things, we leave at six in the morning."

Lauren stomps up the stairs and into her room. Her dad's not home. He and her mom got into an hour long fight and she practically threw him out of the house. Lauren still doesn't know how she feels about that. She doesn't want to, but she can't help feeling like it's somehow a failure on her part. Just another thing she has managed to fuck up. She had one simple job; keep everything under control, and all she's done is murk it up.

It takes her almost half an hour in the bathroom and nothing comes out. Her stomach was already empty to begin with, so that's no surprise. Still, it bugs the hell out of her because she might be empty of food, but she's overwhelmed with emotions she doesn't want to deal with and unless she wants to lose the little sanity she has left, she needs to let them out.

She'd like to say she's careful with the way she goes down the stairs, but that would be a lie. She practically stomps down the stairs and into the kitchen. The only thought in her head is _food._ And she doesn't even want the food itself, she just wants to feel full so that she can let everything out. She eats ice cream and yoghurt and about seven slices of bread. Something in her head tells her that her mom might come down and find her eating like an animal because honestly, she's not being graceful about it. But she cannot stop eating, not until she feels so full she can't breathe. Then she goes to the bathroom, opens the shower, opens the sink, kneels in front of the toilet and sticks two fingers down her throat. It takes about thirty minutes before she's done and trudging to her bedroom with a throbbing head and puffy face.

She doesn't even flinch when she finds Skylar seated on her bed. Her brains too tired for emotions right now. She wipes her lips with the back of her palm and leans on the wall, "what are you doing here?" She asks quietly.

"I came to apologize," Skylar says dubiously, looking at Lauren with studying eyes. Lauren looks at her feet, she knows her face looks worse for wear, and questions she doesn't have answers to are the last thing she needs right now. The room is spinning, her headaches spreading to every fucking part of her body. She just wants everything to _stop. "_ Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just need to pack. I'm-" she rubs her pulsing temple, her fingers are freezing. "I'm going to my sister's for a while."

"Why?"

"Cause my mom says so." She shrugs. She wonders if Skylar would think her weird if she sunk to the floor right now. She's just so tired. "You should leave. I really need to get this done."

"Well, when will you be back?"

"I don't _know_ Skylar." She sighs and shifts her weight from foot to foot.

"Where does she live?"

"The city."

There's silence in the room for a minute and Lauren wonders when Skylar's going to leave, then, "can I come with?" Skylar asks.

And Lauren knows she should say no, because Skylar's presence is just going to complicate things a million times more. The chances of her having even a single moment to herself are going to be even slimmer with Skylar around. But just the thought of thinking up a good enough argument to change Skylar's mind is making her already out of control headache that much worse. So she just shrugs, "suit yourself."

* * *

Lauren's mother drives them to the bus station in the morning. She kept checking on Lauren throughout the night, like she was afraid Mr. Lewis would sneak into the house and beat Lauren to death or something. She doesn't ask questions when Lauren tells her that Skylar's coming with, she looks as tired as Lauren feels.

"You be good for your sister, okay?" She cries out before she lets Lauren onto the bus. She smooths down Lauren's hair and fixes her sweater and kisses her cheek. "I'm going to make this right honey," she says, cradling Lauren's cheek, "I promise." Lauren doesn't say anything back; her mind has shut down on her. Today's an incredibly empty day. It's like there's completely nothing inside of her, she doesn't even have the will to _feel._ "Call me when you get there, okay?" Lauren nods.

The drive is long. She puts her earphones on and lays her head on the window. Nothing registers in her mind, she watches the trees go by, nods when Skylar asks her a question or two, although she honest to god doesn't know what on earth the questions are. She walks into a store when they make a stop. She spends almost all the money her mom gave her on junk. "I'll be right back." She mumbles to Skylar then makes her way to the toilet.

She almost laughs as she opens her first packet of crisps, this is what she has been reduced to; eating in a fucking bathroom in the middle of lord knows where. She's quick about it; she's always quick about these things. Savoring the taste of whatever she's eating is not her priority, getting rid of the emptiness inside her is. It's almost like a switch flicks inside her and she can't _stop._ She just eats and eats and eats until she doesn't feel as empty anymore. Then she doubles over the toilet and lets it all out. She cleans her face when she's done, swishes some water, then some mouthwash into her mouth and pops a mint.

She studies herself in the mirror for a few seconds, puts on her earphones, puts on her hoodie and walks out of the bathroom.

...

Lauren's tired by the time they get to the city. Everything's louder here, everyone's more alive. There are lights and sounds and people everywhere. Everyone seems to be in such a hurry, they're all so sure of themselves, they all seem so certain of the direction they're lives are heading, and Lauren just can't stop looking at them in awe.

For a moment, she doesn't feel so empty anymore. "You want some coffee?" Skylar asks, pointing to a small coffee shop. Lauren nods, but doesn't offer to go with Skylar. She just wants to look at the city and its people. Maybe if she studies them hard enough, she can learn how to pretend to be like them. Then people won't have to ask her if she's okay all the time. "Here." Skylar's voice pulls Lauren from her thoughts, and Lauren looks up to find her stretching out a cup of coffee.

"Thanks." Lauren says with a smile and takes the coffee. She swigs her feet back and forth and alternates between looking at the people of the city and looking for any signs of Lucy. It's been such a long time since Lauren saw her; she wouldn't be surprised if they didn't recognize each other. People have mentioned to Lauren once or twice that she's much skinnier now. They usually mean it as a compliment, especially Mark. Lauren wonders if Lucy too would think that it's good that she's lost weight.

"Is that your sister?" Skylar says and Lauren looks to where Skylar's pointing and yeah, that's Lucy alright. She has changed, in really subtle ways. She seems more mature, taller even. She's smiling at Lauren, waving at her with one hand, carrying a baby in the other.

"Hey." She says when she finally gets to Lauren and Skylar, "you've grown so big." She gives Lauren a one armed hug and greets Skylar with a smile, "I'm Lucy."

"Skylar."

"Who is that?" Are the first words that come out of Lauren's mouth. The baby has her head on Lucy's shoulder, and Lauren would be a fool to think he's anyone else's kid but Lucy's. He is a spitting image of their dad when he was younger.

"This is Dylan. He's been fussy all morning. I literally just got him to sleep on the way here." Lucy's looking at Lauren carefully, trying to gauge her reaction.

Lauren doesn't know what else to do, so she nods. Everything makes so much sense now. Her mom's trips to the city, the endless phone calls between her mom and Lucy. She suddenly feels out of place. She take a big gulp of her coffee and avoids Skylar who keeps looking at her with something that looks too much like pity.

...

"Welcome." Lucy says, pushing open the door to her house, "I'm sorry the place looks like shit. Dylan's a little messy." Things are still awkward; actually, they've gotten even more awkward on the ride here. Lucy seems like she wants to tell Lauren something, she just doesn't know how to say it. Lauren keeps looking at the child, wondering what she did that was so wrong that Lucy decided to hide this from her. And if she hadn't been forced to come here, would she have ever known of his existence? "Your room is this way. I'm sorry it's so small." She looks at Lauren with an apology written all over her face and they both know she's not apologizing for the room.

Lauren looks away.

"It's fine." Skylar says, trying to wade away some of the awkwardness, "right Lo?"

"Yeah," Lauren tries for a smile. It feels more like a grimace on her face. "It's fine."

Lauren doesn't leave the room until the next morning. Skylar and Lucy try to get her to come out for dinner, but she tells them she's not hungry. Which is true. The whole awe thing she had about the city is gone, and now she's just empty again. But empty and hungry are two different things. Sometimes it feels like her body's forgotten _how_ to be hungry. She never eats for satiation anymore, she eats to fill herself up so that she can throw up, food has been reduced to nothing more than a means to an end. She doesn't even think she remembers how it _felt_ to eat. Usually her mind blanks out almost as soon as she starts eating.

Sometimes she longs to go back to the days before she started all these _coping mechanisms._ But then she doesn't really know what she'd do without them.

"Will you at least have breakfast with us?" Skylar nags, being her usual annoying self.

Lauren sighs. "Fine."

When they walk into the kitchen, Lucy has Dylan on a high chair, trying to persuade him to eat. "Please baby?" She pleads. Dylan just looks at her then bursts into a fit of giggles. Lucy groans, then looks up at him with a smile, "tell you what, you eat one spoonful and I'll tell Crys to play the airplane game with you." Dylan just looks at her and grabs at her nose and giggles. Lucy chuckles. "I give up."

"Can I try?" Lauren asks softly. Lucy looks up, startled, like she can't really believe Lauren's talking to her. She nods at Lauren and moves aside. Lauren takes a seat and smiles at Dylan, he looks like a happy version of her dad. She loves him already. "Hi there little guy." He looks at her curiously then grabs a handful of her hair. He pulls at it and laughs when Lauren shrieks, "okay, let's give this whole eating business a try, yeah." Dylan let go of her hair and claps his little palms. Lauren smiles without having to think about it.

...

"Luce. Luce I..." A girl, blonde haired and so, so _pretty_ is standing in front of Lucy's door, shedding off her coat, looking at Lauren with confused eyes. "You're not Lucy."

"Oh no." Lauren shakes her head, feeling a flush of something warm creeping up her spine, "I'm- I'm Lauren."

"Oh yeah, the sister." The pretty girl smiles warmly and hangs her coat up, "Lucy was shitting bricks when she heard you were coming. She's been meaning to talk to you for _months."_ She smiles even wider and sits right next to Lauren, looking her right in the eyes. "You're even more gorgeous than she said you were." She takes a few strands of Lauren's hair between her fingers, "who does your hair?"

"Oh I- me? I mean me. I do."

The girl chuckles, soft and lilted, "you're cute."

Lauren's about to say something back when Lucy comes walking in, an almost naked Dylan, save for his diapers, in her arms. "Crys you're fucking late. Again. And would you stop hitting on my sister."

"She's just so beautiful."

"She also has a boyfriend." Lucy retorts, dropping the baby in 'Crys's' arms. "Lay off her."

The warm feeling in Lauren's body all but disappears. She wrings her cold fingers together and bites her lower lip. Mark. She had forgotten about him, again.

"I'm gonna go to-"

"Do you want to hang out?" Crys takes a break from making funny faces at Dylan to ask, "later, when I'm not taking care of the little monster."

"Stop calling my son names, Crystal."

"Shut up Luce." She says then turns back to Lauren, "so, what do you say, gorgeous?"

"Oh. I- uh, Okay? I guess?"

"Great." Crystal beams.

Lauren excuses herself and rushes to the bedroom.

...

"You do know that Crystal's into you, right?"

It's day two in the city, and Lucy has gone to work. Lauren volunteered to take care of Dylan until Crystal shows up. Skylar has a date with some guy called _Vex._ Lauren doesn't really know what kind of name that is, and what to think of somewhat named as such, but Skylar seems cautiously excited to be going out with him. So Lauren figures it's okay.

"I have a boyfriend." She says, bouncing Dylan on her knees. He keeps playing with her hair, looking at her with such uninhibited openness.

"Yeah. And?" Skylar looks at a shirt, wrinkles her nose at it and throws it to the side then picks another, "you don't even like him."

Lauren's knees still. Dylan's smile drops, "what are you talking about, I like him plenty."

"If you say so." Skylar says. But it sounds like she's saying it more for Lauren's benefit than anything else. She lifts up two shirts, "green or blue?"

"Any's fine."

...

Lauren has Dylan fed and bathed by the time Crystal arrives. She hates to admit this, but coming to the City was a really good move. She wouldn't go as far as to say things are easier here, because things are never easy for her, but they're certainly not as hard as they usually are at home. She hasn't switched her phone on in days so she hasn't talked to Bo, Mark or her mom. And – it's just it's not as hard to deal with things as long as they don't keep piling and piling.

"Hey," Crystal greets, kissing Lauren's temple and Lauren's startled into a state of temporary shock before the heat in her cheeks pulls her out of it. "You look hot in red."

"Um- thank you." She scoots a little on the chair. Smiling bit when she notices that Dylan has fallen asleep.

"I'll take him to bed. Then we can... I don't know, watch a movie or something. What do you say?"

Lauren nods. "A movie sounds good."

They end up watching Home Alone. And in the middle of it, Crystal orders pizza. Lauren only has one slice and about three bottles of water with it. She bites tiny pieces and chew for minutes because that's what her body's used to doing. At one point, she takes a big bite because she doesn't want Crystal to think she's weird, but then she feels so fucking nauseous and decides to just eat the way she's used to.

"I was thinking we could go out tomorrow? Dylan's dad picks him up every Friday evening so we'll be free. Unless you have other plans?"

Lauren shakes her head. Her stomach feels too full. It wasn't intentional this time, and it's freaking her out. All she wants is for Crystal to leave so that she can use the bathroom. It's practically a reflex now, whenever her stomach feels even slightly full, she wants to throw up. "Great." Crystal smiles and kisses Lauren's cheek. She's very affectionate, and boundaries just don't exist to her. Lauren finds her oddly fascinating. "See you tomorrow, beautiful."

...

Lauren's freaking out. She doesn't know what to wear, or how to act. She has never been on a date with anyone other than Mark, not a real date anyway. She keeps telling herself that she and Crystal are just friends. But the butterflies in her stomach whenever Crystal calls her 'beautiful' or 'gorgeous' beg to differ.

"You're going to be fine." Skylar says carelessly. Eating ice cream from the tab, watching something violent on TV. "Just be yourself. You're fucking awesome."

"The other week you said I was an annoying snob with a permanent stick stuck up my ass."

"Well, that was the other week. Let's not dwell on the past. It's petty and we're so much better than that."

"I hate you." Lauren hits her with a pillow and Skylar ducks, laughing. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Lauren misses Bo. These are the kind of moments that she and Bo used to have all the time before Lauren ruined everything with her stupid feelings. She runs her fingers through her hair and sighs. What the _hell_ is she even doing, going out with a girl. She has a boyfriend, and she needs to be working on getting over her unnatural feelings, not feeding into them. She plops on the couch. "I'm not going." She lays her head back on the couch and shuts her eyes. She should switch her phone off, call Mark, make sure he doesn't break up with her as soon as she gets home. "I think we should go back home."

"Lauren- "

"Tomorrow. I'll- I'll call my mom and tell her-"

"Lauren, _stop._ Just go hang out with Crystal. Have some fun, no one's asking you to marry the girl. Just – live a little."

Lauren looks at Skylar for a moment then nods. She's been trying her best not to overthink everything while she's here. That's why she's yet to switch her phone on _or_ have the dreaded conversation with Lucy. She's trying this whole 'going with the flow' thing and so far, it's going well. She hasn't had the feeling to purge. She has done it, three times, but it was more out of reflex than will. And it might not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but to her, it's progress.

"Okay. I'm just- I'm gonna go out and have fun."

And that's what she does.

Crystal shows up with flowers and a white dress that hugs her in all the right places. She takes Lauren to a small restaurant that smells like grease and sounds like happiness. They have fries and Lauren has like three pieces because she doesn't feel like being on her knees in a public place. Afterwards, Crystal takes Lauren to a small bar where they met up with a few of her friends. "Lauren, meet the banes of my existence, the one in the puke green is Evony, then Nadia and Ciara. Guys, this is Lauren."

"First of all, fuck you. This is _Chanel_. Secondly, hi Lauren." Evony waves at Lauren in a way that seems calculating.

Lauren's mind starts acting up almost immediately, trying to think of what to do in order to make Evony like her. She settles on a smile and a wave. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

"You don't have to be nice to her. She's a bitch. Be nice to Ciara. I like her. She's the only one who's never mean to me."

"I take offense in that." Nadia says, looking at Lauren with bright eyes. She kind of reminds Lauren of Valerie, only more mature. Lauren looks away.

The four friends fall into familiar conversation, and they try to include Lauren and Lauren tries staying present, but at some point, she drifts off and starts studying the people around her. That's the one thing that hasn't changed since she was a kid, she still finds people endlessly fascinating. "Lauren." Crystal's voice and her warm hand on Lauren's lap pulls her back to the present. "You okay?"

"Yeah. You're friends are awesome. Thanks for introducing me to them."

From then on, Lauren starts hanging out with Crystal and her friends more and more. Sometimes they stay in the house and watch movies with Lucy and Skylar. Sometimes they go out, especially when Dylan's with his father. Other times she just hangs out with Skylar. They tease each other as always. Lauren switches her phone on once, she has about fifty voicemails from Bo that she doesn't listen to and double the amount of texts that she doesn't read.

' _I'm fine. I'm at Lucy's. Miss you.'_

She stares at the text for almost a whole ten minutes before sending the text and switching the phone back off.

Her mom has called on Lucy's phone, numerous times asking to talk to Lauren, but Lauren can't stand to listen to her voice. So Lucy takes messages.

"Daddy's in rehab now." She informs Lauren one night. Crystal and Nadia just left and Lauren has just put Dylan to bed. Skylar's out with Vex, again, and for the first time since Lauren got here, she and Lucy are all by themselves with no distraction. Lauren knows they're going to have the talk whether she likes it or not. "Can we talk." She pats the space next to her on the couch, "please. "Lauren sighs and takes a seat. Another brick from her well-constructed wall is going down. And there's nothing she can do about it.

"Mom told me what happened. What- what he did to you. I'm sorry." Lauren shrugs. What is she supposed to say, thanks? "And I'm sorry I haven't been there for you. I know I fucked our relationship up. I just-"

"It's okay, Lucy. It happened. I'm over it. I've moved on."

"Lauren I'm trying to apologize, please let me."

"What for? You came to the City and acted like I don't exist. Did it hurt? Yeah, of course it did. But I learnt to live without you. I learnt to live without _anyone._ The only reason mom even found out was because she walked in on him about to hit me. I would _never_ have told her."

"Lauren-"

"I'm good, okay? Shit happens, I deal with it, my way. I don't need you. I don't need _anyone."_

"But I need you. I miss you, Lauren. And I- I didn't forget you existed. I just fucked up, okay? I got here and the rush of everything got to me. Suddenly, I was pregnant and jobless and homeless and I dropped out of school and I just couldn't face mom or dad and I especially couldn't face you."

"Me?" Lauren laughs mirthlessly, pointing at herself.

"Yes you. Do you have any idea how hard it is being your sister? You're the closest thing to a perfect daughter there'll ever be. You've always been. And just the thought of failing at something else that you would never fail at made me sick. So I decided to tough it out. I wasn't even planning on telling mom. Not until I thought I was literally going to die. The pregnancy was complicated, and I panicked, so I called her. Daddy just recently found out. He didn't take it very well."

Everything makes so much more sense to Lauren now. Her mom's numerous visits to the city all of a sudden. Lucy being sick for months on end. Her mom's and Lucy's numerous phone calls. Her dad saying she and Lucy are 'ungrateful brats'. It just makes sense now.

"Were you ever going to tell me about him?"

"Yeah." Lucy says quietly, "I just needed to figure out the best way how."

"He's beautiful."

"Thank you. And I really am sorry Lauren. I'm going to try and be better for you, okay? I know it won't be easy for you to believe me, but I'm going to try. I promise." Lauren nods. She doesn't know how to tell Lucy that she's a mess now. She's not worth Lucy's promises. She's not worth anyone's anything. "Do you maybe want to eat some ice cream and watch some trashy TV."

"Yeah." Lauren answers without even having to think about it. "That sounds great."

...

Lauren's mother calls. Things are great now, she says, Lauren needs to go back home. So on the second last night that Lauren and Skylar have in the City, Lucy arranges for Dylan's father to take Dylan so they can have a girl's night out. Nadia, Evony and Ciara join them and they go from one bar to another, people in the City don't seem to care that Lauren and Skylar aren't even close to twenty one. Somewhere between bar number three and bar number five, a girl joins them. She's sweet and shy and she greets everyone with cheek kisses, expect for Evony, who gets a long drawn full mouth kiss. "Is she?" Lauren whispers to Crystal's ear. She has had about four bottles of beer so far, so her brain to mouth filter is almost nonexistent.

"Her girlfriend? Yep." Crystal laces their fingers together and swings their hands as they walk. "They've been dating for as long as I've known them. Her name's Mila. She's got Evony whipped."

"I can hear you." Evony sing-songs. Mila laughs.

"I was counting on it." Crystal retorts. Then starts running while still holding on to Lauren's hand as Evony starts chasing after her.

They go to four other bars before they call it quits. Lauren stops drinking on the fourth one, so by the time they get home, she's more or less sober. Nadia doesn't drink at all, neither does Lucy. So it's up to the three of them to drag everyone into Lucy's apartment and put them in a way that ensures they don't choke to their deaths in the middle of the night.

"She really likes you." Nadia say as Lauren's removing Crystal's shoes. "Her mood was off the whole day after Lucy told her you're leaving tomorrow. She only started smiling once we came to pick you up."

Lauren looks at Crystal. She's sleeping with her mouth open, make up a little less than impeccable. One of her hands draped across her stomach. Lauren smiles and tucks Crystal's hair behind her ear, "I really like her too." She says honestly. Crystal has been the healthiest distraction Lauren has had in her life. Given the chance, she thinks maybe things would have progressed to more than just a distraction.

"Can I take a few photos of you?"

Lauren arches a brow, "what?"

"It's for an art project. You just- you have a really impressive bone structure is all."

Lauren doesn't know how to say no to that, so she doesn't. She lets Nadia take as many photos as she wants, then tries hard to believe it when Nadia tells her she's beautiful, but she fails miserably at that. "Do you maybe want to see them later? When I'm done developing them I mean." Lauren nods. Not because she cares for the photos, but it would be rude to say no. Nadia kisses her cheek before she leaves, "Crystal's really lucky she saw you first."

...

Skylar shakes Lauren awake at a ridiculous hour of the morning. At first, Lauren thinks they're leaving, then she remembers they don't have to leave until tomorrow morning and she groans and tried burrowing further into the mattress. "What?" She groans when Skylar just won't let her be.

"I have something to tell you."

"Wassit?" Lauren mumbles.

Skylar chuckles. "I'm not ready to tell you yet. But – will you do something with me later?"

"Sure."

Turns out whatever Skylar wants them to do involves going to the store. They get a pair of scissors, some dye and since they're out anyway, they pick up breakfast for everyone.

"I feel like death, " Crystal mumbles when she wakes up, "I'm never drinking again."

"That's what you always say." Lucy says, feeding Dylan his breakfast. Lauren doesn't know how early she got up to go get him, but by the time Lauren and Skylar came from the store, Dylan was home.

"I mean it this time." She lays her head on Lauren's shoulder. "Thanks for breakfast. I really wish you didn't have to leave."

And so does a part of Lauren. Being in the City has been everything she never thought it would be. She feels like a whole new person after only a week of being here. Her body hurts less, her mind runs less. Everything about her is less and that's oddly a good thing. But a huge part of Lauren cannot wait to get home. She has already decided that she's going to break up with Mark and tell Bo how she feels. She kissed Crystal yesterday. Not for any reason other than the fact that she wanted to. And the world didn't crumble within itself. And she wants that for her and Bo, she wants them to just _be,_ and once she gets home, she's going to take the first step into making that a reality.

After everyone leaves and Dylan's taking a nap, Skylar leads Lauren to the bathroom. "I want you to cut my hair." She says, not a trace of humor in her voice.

Lauren frowns, "like, trim it?"

"No. Cut it. All of it. Well- not all of it. Just, most of it."

"Why?"

"Please don't ask me that." She shakes her head. Lauren nods and does what she's told. It's a bad haircut according to Lauren. But Skylar loves it. She makes Lauren dye her hair black after, and when they're done, Skylar looks like she's going to cry. "It's perfect." She whispers, looking at herself in the mirror like she's seeing her reflection for the first time. Lauren doesn't know what to say, so she doesn't say anything.

They have dinner, all of them. Everyone says Skylar's hair looks good. They all seem to know it means _something._ Vex comes to dinner too. He's wearing high heels and make up and Skylar looks so _happy_ around him. He keeps calling her Sky. Just Sky. So Lauren sticks to calling her that too. It makes her smile at Lauren, the kind of smile that goes all the way to her eyes and lights her whole face up. Nadia gives Lauren the pictures. One of them has a number at the back. _Call me_ , it says. Crystal kisses Lauren with tears in her eyes before she leaves. Lauren lets her because she can tell that Crystal needs this.

"Find me if you ever come back to the city, okay?"

"You're like my sister's shadow. I'm pretty sure I won't have to look too hard."

Crystal laughs and kisses Lauren again.

When Lucy takes them to the bus stop the next morning and hugs Lauren and promises to call, Lauren feels like this is a new beginning.

A better one.

* * *

Everything goes to shit the day after Lauren arrives home. The day of arrival is okay. Her mom and Mr. Santiago come to pick them up because apparently the Lewis car broke down a few days ago. They all go out to dinner, Skylar included. Mrs. Lewis and Mr. Santiago don't say anything about Sky's hair, but they keep looking at her weirdly, so Lauren cuts the dinner short.

She asks her mom if she can spend the night at Nicklaus's and her mom's quick to agree. "Just be home in the morning. I want to see you before I go to work."

Lauren wants to go to Bo's, but the Dennis's are out of town. So she just texts Bo, asking her to call, and she goes to see Mark instead. Their breakup is extremely anticlimactic. He seems like he's been expecting it. "It's Bo, isn't it?" Any other day, the question would have sent Lauren into full panic mode. But not today. Today she's being brave. So she just swallows hard and nods. Mark nods too and sighs. "I'm really sorry about all that insensitive shit I said about girls being with girls. I didn't- I didn't really mean any of it." Lauren nods and tells him it's okay.

She hugs him before she leaves because he really is a great guy.

"I hope she treats you well. You deserve to be treated well."

Lauren hopes so too. But first, before that can happen, she needs to _actually_ tell Bo how she feels.

She wakes up with excited. It's a good day. She hasn't had one of those in so long that she'd almost forgotten how they feel. But since she went to the City, she's been feeling better and better and now she' finally having a legit _good_ day. She has breakfast with her mom. The urge to run to the toilet once her stomach is full is strong, but she suppresses it and goes to the store instead. Bo called her at around six in the morning, asking if she's really home. Once Lauren had said yes, she said she's driving back home.

"Without your parents?" Lauren had asked.

"Fuck them." Bo had said, she sounded like she was already walking around, looking for her keys. Ready to drive away from her parents at the crack of dawn just to see Lauren. "I've missed you so much."

"Missed you too."

"I'll be there in two hours, tops. Don't you _dare_ go anywhere."

"I'm won't . I promise."

By the time Lauren gets home, Bo's seated on her porch, bouncing her knees up and down. As soon as she sees Lauren, her eyes widen and she runs into Lauren's arms. "Fuck, I've missed you." She buries her head into Lauren's neck. Lauren hugs her tighter. She smells like Armani and weed. She's warm and she's familiar. Lauren's going to change their whole lives today.

"Do you think you could help me carry this stuff into the house."

"In a minute." Bo whispers, "just give me one more minute."

...

They cook pizza. Bo makes a mess of the kitchen. Lauren doesn't care.

"Will you please set the table before you set my mom's kitchen on fire."

"I wasn't going to set it on fire." Bo says indignantly.

"Yes you were." Lauren chuckles as she stands on her tip toes to take the plates. She feels Bo's hands snake around her waist, a kiss on her back.

"I really fucking missed you." She lays her head on Lauren's back and they stay like that for a while until Lauren's sure the pizza's going to burn.

Bo completely refuses to talk about her family. Says it'll ruin her mood. Lauren doesn't want to talk about her father either, and talking about the City means talking about Crystal and Nadia and Lauren just can't have that. So they end up talking about mundane things and messing around with each other. Lauren sits on the counter and eats an apple as Bo does the dishes. "I broke up with Mark by the way."

"Why?" Bo asks, wiping her hands off with towel.

Lauren knows this is it, so she leads Bo to the couch and sits them down. She takes in a huge breath. This is it. Her hearts beating too fast for her body to handle and she's feeling a little dizzy but more than that, she's determined. She has to do this. She wrings her hands together and sighs. Here goes. "So uh- things between Mark and I weren't working out, so I called it off. And the reason I called it off is because, well...I'm in love with someone else."

"Okay. You wanna tell me who?"

"Actually it's um- it's you."

It's silent. A part of Lauren is waiting for everything around her to crush. Disintegrate into completely nothing. But after a whole minute of silence, nothing happens. And Lauren finally starts breathing again. A smile creeps onto her face completely without her consent. She literally feels like something has been lifted off of her. She has told Bo. She has said something that she's been dreading to say for so long, and her world's still standing.

She's still here and she's okay.

Now, for the next step. She leans into Bo's personal space and kisses her. She's half expecting rejection and is pleasantly surprised when Bo kisses her back, pulls her closer and threads her fingers through Lauren's hair and Lauren's just about to take things further when Bo pushes her away.

"Shit. What- what was that?" She asks, she seems out of it. Running her hands through her hair, pacing, "we don't do that." She points between her and Lauren. "We have sex and make out when we're sad, or high or some shit like that. We don't make out after confessing our fucking feelings. That's not us."

Lauren's whole body feels like it's shutting down, one organ after the other. Her eyes blur with tears, her head throbs with the loud voice that's yelling _'I told you so'_ over and over again, her lungs feel too full and too empty both at the same time. Her stomach's churning so violently she's expecting herself to retch any minute now. There's too much going on. And that familiar need to just stick fingers down her throat is getting too loud to ignore.

"But it can be us." She sounds desperate. Pathetic. She has never hated herself more than she does in this moment. "I just told you I _love_ you." She says around a chuckle that sounds almost hysterical.

"And I love you. You fucking know that. But love and sex are two completely different things."

"They don't have to be."

"Well they are. Look, I have to go. I'll call you later."

Lauren doesn't even bother waiting for the bang of the door before she runs to the bathroom.

...

Lauren sometimes feels like the universe has this rule when it comes to her; whenever something good happens to her, something bad has to happen right after to balance things out. The City was good. Patching things up with Lucy was awesome. Crystal and Nadia were definitely good. And now she's paying for it.

She gave her everything. These past weeks, she has just been giving and giving, breaking down her walls, brick by brick until she was completely defenseless and all she gets from it is bruised knees from kneeling in front of the toilet for a total of about eight hours and a fucking headache that won't go away no matter how many pills she pops.

Lucy and Crystal call. Lauren ignores them. Sky comes over just as Lauren is coming from her sixth, seventh binge? She can't recall. They've all just bled into each other at this point. She eats, she purges, then she eats some more and purges some more and the cycle continues.

"Are you okay?" Sky asks, not bothering to hide the concern in her voice.

"I'm fine." Lauren wipes her lips with the back of her hands.

"How did it go with Bo?"

"Swell. Could you- could you maybe come back later? Right now's not a good time for me."

"But I thought you said things went well with Bo."

"They did."

"Then why-"

"I just need to take care of some things." She walks to the fridge. It's almost empty. She's going to need to go for a food run soon. She doesn't really know what her end goal is. There's just a hole in her that she needs filled and it won't stay fucking full and it's driving her to the brink of insanity.

"Are you okay?" Sky asks again. Lauren sighs and rubs at her temple. Her hands are freezing and clammy. Her head hurts something awful. She only has bread and peanut butter left. She hates purging bread. It chokes the hell out her. Still, she butters all twelve slices. "Are you going to eat all that?"

"I ate something bad earlier. I threw up all of it. I'm hungry as hell."

"Okay." She's looking at Lauren dubiously, Lauren raises a brow at her. "What?" Sky asks.

" _Leave._ " Lauren snaps.

Sky considers her for a moment then puts her palm up in a sign of surrender, "fine. I'm gone."

Lauren's in the middle of her twelfth or fourteenth purge when her mom walks in, shouting her name on top of her lungs. "Lauren." She knocks hard on the bathroom door. "Lauren honey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She croaks and flushes the toilet. She rinses her mouth, stands under the shower for a few seconds and then wraps a towel around herself before opening the door for her mom. "Hey."

"Honey, your friend called me. Nick's sister, she sounded hysterical, said I needed to come home immediately. Are you okay?"

"I said I'm fine." She's going to faint. She needs somewhere flat to lie down. Her heart feels like it's going to beat right out of her chest. Or maybe it'll stop all together. That would be a relief.

"I heard you throwing up."

"I just ate something nasty. It's out of my system now. I'm fine."

"But your friend says you've been throwing up for hours. She says you threw up on your way to the City _and_ while you were in the City. Did you eat something nasty then too?"

"My stomach's been acting up. It's fine now."

Her mom doesn't say anything then, "I'm ordering dinner. Be down in half an hour."

"Mom I'm not-"

"You said you're feeling fine now. Be down in half an hour, Lauren. This is _not_ a discussion."

...

Mrs. Lewis orders all of Lauren's favourites and just looking at the table makes Lauren feel nauseous. It's not that she doesn't want to eat, she has wanted to do nothing but eat since Bo stepped out of the house. But she knows that once she starts, she's not going to stop. And she doesn't want her mom seeing her in that state.

"Are you not going to eat?" Her mom asks when Lauren just pushes her food on her plate.

"I'm not hungry."

"You said you're fine."

"Fine and hungry are not synonymous words, mom. Look, I'm suddenly not feeling so good. I think I'm gonna go to bed now." She leans in and kisses her mom's cheek, "good night."

She waits in her room. Knees tucked to her chest, feeling antsy, like a stranger in her own skin. She listens to every sound, every movement. She counts to fifty the minute she hears her mom's bedroom door close, then she sneaks out of her room and down the stairs and into the kitchen. She puts all the left overs in front of her, right on the floor, she leaves the fridge door open because she doesn't want to switch the lights on and starts eating.

She doesn't know and neither does she care how long she eats for. She just eats and eats until she can't feel that hole inside her anymore. All she feels is full. Too full. Like she'll stop breathing if she doesn't let it out. She runs up the stairs and is startled to find her mom standing in front of the bathroom door, crying. "This is not normal honey." Is the first thing she says.

Lauren cannot deal with her right now. She simply can't. She's already too full as it is, she can't add anything else, especially not her mom's pain.

"I got hungry, okay? I got hungry so I went to have something to eat and now my stomach's acting up again, so will you please move so that I can use the bathroom?"

"It's two in the morning. You've been down there for an _hour."_

"So what? I eat slow. Mom please move, I _need_ to use the bathroom."

"No."

"What?"

"I said no." Her mom crosses her arms and looks at Lauren with hard eyes.

Lauren feels like everything is going to come out before she's ready. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, "please. Please, I really need to use the bathroom."

"Honey." Her mom's pleading now. She looks like she's about to cry. And if Lauren could, she would walk away right now and go sleep. But she can't.

"This will be the last time, okay? I won't do it again." Her mom starts full out crying. Lauren just moves around her because she can't take this feeling of fullness anymore. She opens the shower and the sink, pulls her hair back and kneels in front of her toilet. "Could you please leave."

"No."

"Mom..."

"No. If you want to do this- this _thing_ then you're going to have to do it in front of me." It's a threat, they both know it is. She thinks Lauren will back down because she's standing there. But the thing is, Lauren couldn't stop if she wanted to. And she does want to. But she can't even breathe, feeling as full as she does. She _needs_ to do this.

 _I'm sorry._ She thinks before she sticks two fingers down her throat and jabs until it feels like she's throwing up everything inside of her. She gags and she chokes and her eyes feel like they're going to pop off her face and by the time she's done, she feels like death warmed over. But she feels _better._ Not good, nowhere near good, but not bad either. And that's more than okay for her.

She gives herself a moment to savor the high. It's the only part of the process that's worth anything, that makes it all worth it. She gets up and flushes the toilet, washes her face, rinses her mouth and turns off the shower. She sits on the floor after she's done, registering for the first time that her mom is crying almost hysterically now.

Her hands are freezing, numb even. Her heart feels tired. It's been tired the whole day and right now it's close to being done. The room won't stay in one spot. Every time she swallows, all she tastes is warm iron. She can't do this anymore. She looks at her mother. She bites her lip and shuts her eyes. She's empty again. She wants to fill that emptiness. But the thought of putting her body through the whole process again makes her feel like dying.

"I uh," she wrings her hands together, swallows and looks to the ceiling, "I think that maybe- I think that I might need some help."

 _ **End of part three.**_

* * *

 _This chapter took everything I had to give. i'm yet to edit, I'll do that in the morning since I want to do it myself. But- thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. The response has been so humbling. Thank you so much. Thank you also to the people who PM'd. And Favourited and everything Just thank you._


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